Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group
Thursday 10-10-02 08:00 P.M. EDT
The Juveniles — How to Teach Them?
Here Begin The A.F.H. postings
From: “David M. Silver”
Subject: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Date: Friday, September 20, 2002 9:29 PM
Heinlein Readers’ Group Chats
October 10 and 12, 2002
Back to School
The Juveniles, Another Look —
How to Teach Them?
Book 1 — Rocket Ship Galileo
Robert James, a fellow who teaches a little, and I had a conversation with Mrs. Wood, the literary agent for the Heinlein Estate, while up at ConJosé. One topic of our discussion — never mind about the rest for the time being, we’ll let you know when the time is ripe — was a project near and dear to the hearts of The Heinlein Society, perhaps to you as well, production of something we can call here a Teachers’ Edition of each of the Heinlein Juvenile novels: an examination of how publishers might be encouraged to bring them out, perhaps in a set, perhaps in groups, perhaps one each year as the original juvenile series did come out. Mrs. Wood had a lot of suggestions we’ll be trying to implement.
But mechanics, contractual issues, and finding a publisher actually willing to go to print with the teachers editions aside, the one thing each separate juvenile novel needs is what I’ll call for the purposes of this exercise a teaching critique — more than merely an outline, but a wholehearted examination from which the bones of a comprehensive teaching outline, both for student and teacher, might be produced. By that I mean an examination of what’s in there for each novel, what teaching points exist to be used in each novel? We’ve been through the juveniles before — once over lightly you might say, but never with this single-minded viewpoint exclusively: what would I teach, if I were restricted to using one of Heinlein’s juveniles as the major text, to older grammar or secondary students?
Rocket Ship Galileo, written in February-March 1946, sold to Scribners in September, and published just before the winter holidays in 1947, was the first of the juveniles. It was the first Heinlein I was handed to read, six or so years later in the summer of 1954, by a public librarian. I was eleven at the time. Perhaps you read it at a younger age, perhaps older — maybe, like Oliver Gampe in another recent thread, you’ve just obtained a copy and are reading it for the first time as an adult. Perhaps you’ve never read it, or it’s been so long you’ve forgotten more than you recall.
Criticized sometimes as being “dated,” Galileo was nevertheless the start. One good starting critique of Galileo — and by critique I mean an essay that examines both good and bad — is an internet essay entitled “Destination Moon — Commentary by Joseph T. Major on Robert A. Heinlein’s Rocket Ship Galileo,” found at http://members.iglou.com/jtmajor/RocketSG.htm which we all can look at as a pretty good start for the bones of what a teacher might need.
So, why don’t we do this for our next readers group meeting: read along with Oliver Gampe, and see what we find and what we think about the first juvenile novel, Rocket Ship Galileo, as a teaching vehicle?
Then we can meet, as usual, and discuss it.
Time and Date: Thursday, October 10, 8 PM* to 11 PM*, ET and Saturday, October 12, 5 PM to 8 PM, ET
Topic: Rocket Ship Galileo, creating a teacher’s guide
Place: AIM chatroom “Heinlein Readers Group chat”
Please use the link you’ll find on the Links page of www.heinleinsociety.org to help yourself into the chatroom.
**Please note that I’ve done two things, here. I’ve moved the hour for the Thursday meetings up one hour to accommodate our East Coast and possibly European readers a bit; and I’ve set the meeting for three weeks off to give everyone a good opportunity to obtain a copy of the book.
RSGalileo is temporarily out-of-print. If you haven’t a copy, a search today of www.abebooks.com revealed currently 110 copies of it for sale, ranging from collectors’ prices for near perfect first editions (don’t ask) down to the $2 or $3 or $10 range for paperbacks in various condition. I’ve used Abebooks. Takes about 3 days usually to receive an order by mail, which should be quite sufficient.
As ever, please post your thoughts on the topic. The more posts, the better our chats will be. And we’ll be very happy to see as many of you as possible in the threads that follow and at the chats.
David M. Silver
www.heinleinsociety.org
From: “cmaj7dmin7” Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo Date: Saturday, September 21, 2002 12:37 AM
“David M. Silver”wrote in message news:…
[Stuff…and then…]
>if I were
>restricted to using one of Heinlein’s juveniles as the major text, to
>older grammar or secondary students?
[Other stuff gone, too.]
> David M. Silver
> www.heinleinsociety.org
**********************************
Dave,
Take a look at http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/releases/mindset_2006.html
Says, in part, the following:
BELOIT COLLEGE “MINDSET LIST” FOR THE CLASS OF 2006
Most students entering college this fall were born in 1984.
1. A Southerner has always been President of the United States.
2. Richard Burton, Ricky Nelson and Truman Capote have always been dead.
3. South Africa’s official policy of apartheid has not existed during their
lifetime.
4. Cars have always had eye-level rear stop lights, CD players, and air
bags.
5. We have always been able to choose our long distance carriers.
6. Weather reports have always been available 24-hours a day on television.
7. The “evil empire” has moved from Moscow to a setting in some distant galaxy.
8. “Big Brother” is merely a television show.
9. Cyberspace has always existed.
10. Bruce Springsteen’s new hit, Born in the USA, could have been played to celebrate their birth.
11. Barbie has always had a job.
12. Telephone bills have always been totally incomprehensible.
13. Prom dresses have always come in basic black.
14. A “Hair Band” is some sort of fashion accessory.
15. George Foreman has always been a barbecue grill salesman
16. Afghanistan has always been a front page story.
17. There has always been an heir to the heir to the British throne.
18. They have no recollection of Connie Chung or Geraldo Rivera as serious journalists.
19. Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, and Tom Brokaw have always anchored the evening news.
20. China has always been a market-based reforming regime.
21. The United States has always been trying to put nuclear waste in Nevada.
22. The U.S. and the Soviets have always been partners in space.
23. Mrs. Fields’ cookies and Swatch watches have always been favorites.
24. Nicholas Cage, Daryll Hannah, Eddie Murphy, and John Malkovich made their first major film impressions the year they were born.
25. The GM Saturn has always been on the road.
26. The “Fab Four” are not a male rock group, but four women enjoying “Sex and the City.”
27. Fox has always been a television network choice.
28. Males do not carry a handkerchief in a back pocket.
29. This generation has never wanted to “be a Pepper too.”
30. Ozzy’s lifestyle has nothing to do with the Nelson family.
31. Women have always had tattoos.
32. Vanessa Williams and Madonna are aging singers.
33. Perrier has always come in flavors.
34. Cherry Coke has always come in cans.
35. A “hotline” is a consumer service rather than a phone used to avoid accidental nuclear war.
36. The drug “ecstasy” has always been around.
37. Genetic testing and DNA screening have always been available.
38. Electronic filing of federal income taxes has always been an option.
39. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has always been available to doctors.
40. Trivial Pursuit may have been played by their parents the night before they were born.
41. The U.S. has always maintained that it has a “clear right to use force against terrorism.”
42. The drinking age has always been 21 throughout the country.
43. Women have always been members of the Jaycees.
44. The center of chic has shifted from Studio 54 to Liza’s living room, live!
45. Julian Lennon had his only hit the year they were born.
46. Sylvan Learning Centers have always been an after-school option.
47. Hip-hop and rap have always been popular musical forms.
48. They grew up in minivans.
49. Scientists have always recognized the impact of acid rain.
50. The Coen Brothers have always been making films.
And in 1984, perhaps it was “Too Soon to Tell”…
Technology analysts questioned the need for briefcase-sized computers.
The National Children and Youth Fitness Study announced that children were
overweight and underactive.
A CPA organization heralded that computerized audit systems were being used
to avoid errors and they were doing much better at spotting mistakes and
providing internal audit controls.
Film critics declared that George Lucas was looking for new directions
because Star Wars interest was waning.
Videotape technology was said to be killing the film industry and slowing
cable network development.
Analysts stated there was no market for Direct Broadcast Satellite systems.
The U.S. Supreme Court declared sleeping to be a form of free speech.
© 2002 Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin
*************************************
Now, on top of that “Rocket Ship” is the clunkiest juvenile he wrote. What do you want to do, poison them against both the genre and the writer? Sure, there are kids capable of understanding some of the context of the writing and publication and somebody’s probably going to say those are the ones worth going after. Yeah, right, both those kids and the eventual used book sales, inquiring ng posts they make.
Why don’t you start with something a little more developed and maybe a little flashier as a teaching text? “Tunnel” was the first one I read then “Star Beast.” Both make “Rocket Ship” look like the compromise to get published that it is.
Ditch “Rocket Ship.” It’s too uphill to sell.
LNC
From: “David M. Silver” Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo Date: Saturday, September 21, 2002 12:57 AM
cmaj7dmin7 wrote:
>”David M. Silver” wrote in message
>news:…
>
>[Stuff…and then…]
>
>
>
>>if I were
>>restricted to using one of Heinlein’s juveniles as the major text, to
>>older grammar or secondary students?
>>
>>
>
>[Other stuff gone, too.]
>[snip interesting cultural points, some significant, some same stuff, different days]
>
>*************************************
>Now, on top of that “Rocket Ship” is the clunkiest juvenile he wrote. What
>do you want to do, poison them against both the genre and the writer? Sure,
>there are kids capable of understanding some of the context of the writing
>and publication and somebody’s probably going to say those are the ones
>worth going after. Yeah, right, both those kids and the eventual used book
>sales, inquiring ng posts they make.
>
>Why don’t you start with something a little more developed and maybe a
>little flashier as a teaching text? “Tunnel” was the first one I read then
>”Star Beast.” Both make “Rocket Ship” look like the compromise to get
>published that it is.
>
To answer the question: Some aren’t and some are now available; and I’m
methodical — we’ve got the time to practice; and I’d rather not miss a
point or two.
>Ditch “Rocket Ship.” It’s too uphill to sell.
>
Selling it is a matter of proof, not assertions — I’m willing to be convinced; but that takes facts. 😉 Here’s a basket for you all. Dump ’em on in.
David
From: “Christopher A. Bohn” Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo Date: Saturday, September 21, 2002 8:43 AM
Good morning,
On Sat, 21 Sep 2002, cmaj7dmin7 wrote:
> “David M. Silver” wrote:
[…]
> Take a look at http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/releases/mindset_2006.html
>
> Says, in part, the following:
>
> BELOIT COLLEGE “MINDSET LIST” FOR THE CLASS OF 2006
Generally, I agree with the assessment that most entering college tend to have a short view of history and have had less than two decades’ experience (I’ll admit I suffered from both symptoms), but a few items on the list stretch things a little bit…
> 1. A Southerner has always been President of the United States.
Including the one born in Massachusetts and living in Maine (I’ll stipulate they were too young to remember the one born in Illinois and living in California)?
> 16. Afghanistan has always been a front page story.
A remarkably short definition of “always”. It’s been on my radar since 1996, but except for a week or so in 1998, it hasn’t been on the front page during that time until last year.
> 41. The U.S. has always maintained that it has a “clear right to use force
> against terrorism.”
Not sure about this one. Either it’s the same short definition of “always”, or it’s a rarely-exercised right — in their lifetime, and before last year, there were Operations El Dorado Canyon & Infinite Reach, plus a couple 2d-page hostage rescue operations.
> 28. Males do not carry a handkerchief in a back pocket.
Nor do they (generally) remove their hats indoors. Actually, this fascinates me — a handkerchief, while no longer the preferred method of dealing with nasal discharge, is quite a useful tool to keep handy. Think of it as a miniature towel, if you will (tie-in to Douglas Adams). But it’s pretty obvious by looking at some of what’s in fashion among teenagers that practical value is a very low priority.
Take care,
cb
—
Christopher A. Bohn ____________|____________
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~bohn/ ‘ ** ** ” (o) ” ** ** ‘
“Technology and air power are integrally and synergistically
related.” – P Meilinger, “Ten Propositions Regarding Air Power”
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-09-21 06:48:04 PST
On Sat, 21 Sep 2002 08:43:42 -0400, “Christopher A. Bohn”wrote:
>> 28. Males do not carry a handkerchief in a back pocket.
>
>Nor do they (generally) remove their hats indoors. Actually, this
Except of course for us military types and our recently released ex-brethren who had it ingrained so deeply into our psyche by large screaming drill types that you NEVER wear headgear indoors that we’re still trying to recover from the trauma. 🙂
—
John M. Atkinson
SPC (P) USA
A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the
safety of the body politic of which he is a member,
defending it, if need be, with his life. The
civilian does not.”
–Robert A. Heinlein
From: “Pete LaGrange”Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo Date: Saturday, September 21, 2002 10:45 AM
On Sat, 21 Sep 2002 13:44:30 GMT, in messageJohn M. Atkinson wrote:
>Except of course for us military types and our recently released
>ex-brethren who had it ingrained so deeply into our psyche by large
>screaming drill types that you NEVER wear headgear indoors that we’re
>still trying to recover from the trauma. 🙂
IIRC the exception to this rule was while you were armed and on duty. I could be wrong, been a long time.
—
Pete LaGrange
From: Ogden Johnson III ()
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-09-21 08:38:01 PST
Pete LaGrangewrote:
>John M. Atkinson wrote:
>>Except of course for us military types and our recently released
>>ex-brethren who had it ingrained so deeply into our psyche by large
>>screaming drill types that you NEVER wear headgear indoors that we’re
>>still trying to recover from the trauma. 🙂
>IIRC the exception to this rule was while you were armed and on duty.
>I could be wrong, been a long time.
“Under Arms” is not necessarily armed. It can be simply wearing the duty belt [usually your standard issue web pistol belt, but sometimes it’s something fancy] that reflects your “on-duty” status as duty NCO, OOD, or whatever.
But you are correct, one is always covered, outdoors or indoors, when under arms. At least in the naval service, it’s been too long since my Army brat days so I’ve forgotten what they do.
OJ III
[Other than saluting indoors, anathema to any naval service member not under arms.]
From: charles krin ()
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-09-21 19:26:03 PST
On Sat, 21 Sep 2002 11:35:05 -0400, Ogden Johnson IIIwrote:
>Pete LaGrange wrote:
>
>>John M. Atkinson wrote:
>>>Except of course for us military types and our recently released
>>>ex-brethren who had it ingrained so deeply into our psyche by large
>>>screaming drill types that you NEVER wear headgear indoors that we’re
>>>still trying to recover from the trauma. 🙂
>>IIRC the exception to this rule was while you were armed and on duty.
>>I could be wrong, been a long time.
>
>”Under Arms” is not necessarily armed. It can be simply wearing the
>duty belt [usually your standard issue web pistol belt, but sometimes
>it’s something fancy] that reflects your “on-duty” status as duty NCO,
>OOD, or whatever.
>
>But you are correct, one is always covered, outdoors or indoors, when
>under arms. At least in the naval service, it’s been too long since
>my Army brat days so I’ve forgotten what they do.
>
>OJ III
>[Other than saluting indoors, anathema to any naval service member not
>under arms.]
and for at least some police officers…if they are there on official business, they keep their hats on in doors…
if they are there to visit and enjoy some coffee, the hats come off…
this presumes that their department *has* a hat policy…
ck
—
country doc in louisiana
(no fancy sayings right now)
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-09-22 08:32:03 PST
>
> and for at least some police officers…if they are there on official
> business, they keep their hats on in doors…
Usually for the very practical reason of leaving both hands free.
>
> if they are there to visit and enjoy some coffee, the hats come off…
>
> this presumes that their department *has* a hat policy…
And it’s yet another question if their department has a cat policy. My dear departed Chatterly seemed to like uniforms, or maybe it was the smell of gun oil. If any police officer sat down in the house, she was immediately in their lap and rubbing their face. One one occasion, this caused a hat to become increasingly askew. From: John M. Atkinson ()
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-09-22 15:30:02 PST
On Sat, 21 Sep 2002 11:35:05 -0400, Ogden Johnson IIIwrote:
>>IIRC the exception to this rule was while you were armed and on duty.
>>I could be wrong, been a long time.
>
>”Under Arms” is not necessarily armed. It can be simply wearing the
>duty belt [usually your standard issue web pistol belt, but sometimes
>it’s something fancy] that reflects your “on-duty” status as duty NCO,
>OOD, or whatever.
>
>But you are correct, one is always covered, outdoors or indoors, when
>under arms. At least in the naval service, it’s been too long since
>my Army brat days so I’ve forgotten what they do.
(promotion board answer): First Sergeant, under arms means carrying a weapon by the sling, by the handle, or in a holster.
>OJ III
>[Other than saluting indoors, anathema to any naval service member not
>under arms.]
Or when reporting to a board, court-martial, commander, or a pay officer. Who is the only person NOT required to return a salute regardless of what he is otherwise doing with his hands.
—
John M. Atkinson
SPC (P) USA
A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the
safety of the body politic of which he is a member,
defending it, if need be, with his life. The
civilian does not.”
–Robert A. Heinlein
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-09-22 08:21:49 PST
“David M. Silver” announces:
> Heinlein Readers’ Group Chats
> October 10 and 12, 2002
> Back to School
> The Juveniles, Another Look —
> How to Teach Them?
>
> Book 1 — Rocket Ship Galileo
>
Oh good! I have been missing our chats. Copy in hand, notebook on knee, pen in hand. Ready to read…
Elizabeth
(after tonight’s shift and then I am on VACATION)
From: Simon Jester ()
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-09-22 08:30:06 PST
Jer…, er, “David M. Silver” wrote:
>Heinlein Readers’ Group Chats
>October 10 and 12, 2002
>Back to School
>The Juveniles, Another Look —
>How to Teach Them?
[BIG snip]
Do we *want* to teach them? IME, analysing books in school tended to kill all interest in them; I always made a point of trying to read them before we got around to doing them in class – in the case of “Great Expectations”, I failed to do so. It bores me, even now.
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-09-23 10:48:15 PST
“David M. Silver”wrote in message news:…
>Heinlein Readers’ Group Chats
>October 10 and 12, 2002
>Back to School
>The Juveniles, Another Look —
>How to Teach Them?
>But mechanics, contractual issues, and finding a publisher actually
>willing to go to print with the teachers editions aside, the one thing
>each separate juvenile novel needs is what I’ll call for the purposes of
>this exercise a teaching critique — more than merely an outline, but a
>wholehearted examination from which the bones of a comprehensive
>teaching outline, both for student and teacher, might be produced. By
>that I mean an examination of what’s in there for each novel, what
>teaching points exist to be used in each novel? We’ve been through the
>juveniles before — once over lightly you might say, but never with this
>single-minded viewpoint exclusively: what would I teach, if I were
>restricted to using one of Heinlein’s juveniles as the major text, to
>older grammar or secondary students?
>
>
>David M. Silver
>www.heinleinsociety.org
Dave,
Wanna try again? Take that, up there, apart and say what it is you’re wanting to teach, please. That is, you say you’re starting to teach to about 6th graders, right? Teach what?
Reading?
Writing?
Political science?
History?
Science?
Sex education?
Don’t be doing the shysters’ shimmy, now. Come out and say where RSG fits into the academic curriculum of public schools. Personally, I think you’re asking for trouble if you do this. I think the fiction ought to stay in the library where we’ve always kept it and suggested, with discretion, by individual teachers to illustrate different aspects of subjects under consideration. No Heinlein’s a good textbook for any one thing except a course about Heinlein. Show me a public school system with the bucks for such a class–much less a class for each novel.
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-09-23 11:26:01 PST
“cmaj7dmin7″wrote in message news:BoIj9.82$…
>”David M. Silver” wrote in message
>news:…
>>Heinlein Readers’ Group Chats
>>October 10 and 12, 2002
>>Back to School
>>The Juveniles, Another Look —
>>How to Teach Them?
>>But mechanics, contractual issues, and finding a publisher actually
>>willing to go to print with the teachers editions aside, the one thing
>>each separate juvenile novel needs is what I’ll call for the purposes of
>>this exercise a teaching critique — more than merely an outline, but a
>>wholehearted examination from which the bones of a comprehensive
>>teaching outline, both for student and teacher, might be produced. By
>>that I mean an examination of what’s in there for each novel, what
>>teaching points exist to be used in each novel? We’ve been through the
>>juveniles before — once over lightly you might say, but never with this
>>single-minded viewpoint exclusively: what would I teach, if I were
>>restricted to using one of Heinlein’s juveniles as the major text, to
>>older grammar or secondary students?
>>
>>
>>David M. Silver
>>www.heinleinsociety.org
>
>Dave,
>
>Wanna try again? Take that, up there, apart and say what it is you’re
>wanting to teach, please. That is, you say you’re starting to teach to about
>6th graders, right? Teach what?
>
>Reading?
>Writing?
>Political science?
>History?
>Science?
>Sex education?
It is my understanding that we are talking about using Heinlein in a course such as Literature. You know, something like what is done with the works of Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, H.G. Wells, George Eliot, James Fennimore Cooper, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Earnest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edgar Rice Burroughs, L. Framk Baum, C. S. Forester, Dorothy L. Sayers and others.
Yes, IMNSHO, I do believe that Heinlein is up there with the best of them.
David Wright
From: David M. Silver ()
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-09-23 14:20:09 PST
David Wright wrote:
>”cmaj7dmin7″ wrote in message
>news:BoIj9.82$…
>
>
>>”David M. Silver” wrote in message
>>news:…
>>
>>
>>>Heinlein Readers’ Group Chats
>>>October 10 and 12, 2002
>>>Back to School
>>>The Juveniles, Another Look —
>>>How to Teach Them?
>>>
>>>
>>>But mechanics, contractual issues, and finding a publisher actually
>>>willing to go to print with the teachers editions aside, the one thing
>>>each separate juvenile novel needs is what I’ll call for the purposes of
>>>this exercise a teaching critique [snip the rest] . . .
>>>
>>>
>>Dave,
>>
>>Wanna try again? Take that, up there, apart and say what it is you’re
>>wanting to teach, please. That is, you say you’re starting to teach to
>>
>>
>about
>
>
>>6th graders, right? Teach what?
>>
>>Reading?
>>Writing?
>>Political science?
>>History?
>>Science?
>>Sex education?
>>
>>
>
>It is my understanding that we are talking about using Heinlein in a course
>such as Literature. You know, something like what is done with the works of
>Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, H.G. Wells, George Eliot, James Fennimore
>Cooper, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Earnest Hemingway, F. Scott
>Fitzgerald, Edgar Rice Burroughs, L. Framk Baum, C. S. Forester, Dorothy L.
>Sayers and others.
>
>Yes, IMNSHO, I do believe that Heinlein is up there with the best of them.
>
>David Wright
>
Yes, but . . . I’m trying to recall myself how teachers used the tales we read to teach. Probably the most impressive story to us we read in my fifth-grade “reading” class was Hale’s “The Man Without a Country.” That was a parochial school, fall 1952 I think, maybe even the winter before, and not only was the Eisenhower election looming — and we were aware of it — but the Korean War still being fought.
I recall the nun let us ramble on about the tale: a fairly long while, about loyalty to a society, to one’s oath, redemption, patriotism, she explained who Aaron Burr was, and also explained that the story was written during the American Civil War, when the same issues were important, and, not too suprisingly for a Catholic school, she also interjected a little about rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar’s, etc., as well. The fairness of the ‘justice’ imposed was the overwhelming topic of controversy in that tale.
I cannot recall if we had started receiving back prisoners-of-war, by then; but they certainly arrived shortly, including those who had been ‘brain-washed’ and signed ‘confessions’ or otherwise cooperated with their captors, and I often thought about that tale in the years after.
So, in summary, what did she teach us? History, a little bit about civics, something about morality, law and punishment for crimes, somewhat of an overview about ‘social issues,’ personal responsibility, and of course a bit about religious morality. All things that literature can intrude into a bare class on “reading” for ten-year-olds.
I’d think that good teachers teach pretty well whatever the story affords an opening for, as this one did.
Do they still? Sister Mary Felicitas, IHM, wasn’t about to teach us heresy, but I think she was pretty secure in allowing us to roam about in any other area. Are they still?
David
From: David M. Silver ()
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-09-23 14:50:03 PST
David M. Silver wrote:
>[snip]
>
>>Yes, but . . . I’m trying to recall myself how teachers used the
>>tales we read to teach. Probably the most impressive story to us we
>>read in my fifth-grade “reading” class was Hale’s “The Man Without a
>>Country.”
>
[snip]
From a post I made back in April this year:
“‘The Man Without A Country’ anthologized 1917 in the Harvard Classics
Shelf of Fiction, Volume X, Part 6. There’s even a piece of litcrit included if you care to read it.
http://www.bartleby.com/310/6/1.html”
David
From: David M. Silver ()
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-09-23 13:42:11 PST
cmaj7dmin7 wrote:
>”David M. Silver” wrote in message
>news:…
>
>
>>Heinlein Readers’ Group Chats
>>October 10 and 12, 2002
>>Back to School
>>The Juveniles, Another Look —
>>How to Teach Them?
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>But mechanics, contractual issues, and finding a publisher actually
>>willing to go to print with the teachers editions aside, the one thing
>>each separate juvenile novel needs is what I’ll call for the purposes of
>>this exercise a teaching critique — more than merely an outline, but a
>>wholehearted examination from which the bones of a comprehensive
>>teaching outline, both for student and teacher, might be produced. By
>>that I mean an examination of what’s in there for each novel, what
>>teaching points exist to be used in each novel? We’ve been through the
>>juveniles before — once over lightly you might say, but never with this
>>single-minded viewpoint exclusively: what would I teach, if I were
>>restricted to using one of Heinlein’s juveniles as the major text, to
>>older grammar or secondary students?
>>
>>
>>David M. Silver
>>www.heinleinsociety.org
>>
>>
>
>Dave,
>
>Wanna try again? Take that, up there, apart and say what it is you’re
>wanting to teach, please. That is, you say you’re starting to teach to about
>6th graders, right? Teach what?
>
>Reading?
>Writing?
>Political science?
>History?
>Science?
>Sex education?
>
>Don’t be doing the shysters’ shimmy, now. Come out and say where RSG fits
>
>Don’t be doing the shysters’ shimmy, now. Come out and say where RSG fits
>into the academic curriculum of public schools. Personally, I think you’re
>asking for trouble if you do this. I think the fiction ought to stay in the
>library where we’ve always kept it and suggested, with discretion, by
>individual teachers to illustrate different aspects of subjects under
>consideration. No Heinlein’s a good textbook for any one thing except a
>course about Heinlein. Show me a public school system with the bucks for
>such a class–much less a class for each novel.
>
>LNC
>
That’s a fair set of questions, and it forces me to think back a lot of years. The disadvantage most of us who are not teachers suffer is we only went through our classes one time. How did our teachers integrate, if they did at all, the reading of anything into other classes?
It seems to me it might be helpful to understand how “reading,” or later “literature” is taught from late grammar school onward, not only today, but back when. Perhaps there are some differences that are crucial between then and now that we need recognize. Perhaps there really aren’t, but we need to know what the distinctions may be, even if they are not differences.
In my experience I cannot be certain my earlier years are typical because I went to an experimental grammar school early on in Cleveland, Ohio (It was called Hazeldell Major Work Grammar School, and taught by faculty, presumably teaching students, and staff, on the grounds of Case-Western Reserve University; and they cherry-picked kids who tested very high I.Q.s out of the Cleveland public schools to attend it.), so I’m going to leave anything before the fifth grade out as possibly atypical, since it was.
By the fifth grade I was attending a parochial school in Los Angeles, taught by Roman Catholic nuns. Our parents were required to pay tuition and bought our books — the books were ours to keep and we kept them around for years afterwards until they fell apart — unless they were sold back, and my parents never sold books back. Setting aside the catechism and religious history, I found in later years that the books the parochial school were identical in some respects to those used in LAUSD public school classrooms, although I’m not certain they were used at the same grade levels we had them for. For example, we had an arithmetic workbook with problems suitable to the fifth grade; a world geography text (which included the United States) with various maps; a world history text; an United States history text; a very basic science text — maybe natural history would be a better term, because it was really little more than a mini-encyclopedia of animals and plants — most of these were exactly the same texts used in public schools in California at the time; and a reading anthology — which wasn’t exactly.
The reading anthology we used was a version by the same publishers for use in Roman Catholic parochial schools (including a few stories with religious themes by Catholic writers in addition to the generic tales the anthology regularly contained) of the same anthology I found being used two years later, in the public school junior high I entered after our family moved away from the East Hollywood parish where I had attended the parochial grammar school.
It contained various short stories classic for the time, e.g., Twain’s Jumping Frog, a few Bret Harte tales, Hale’s “The Man Without a Country,” etc., the poetry we learned to recite as our parents and probably grandparents had: Poe’s Raven, “The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck,” “Hiawatha,” and so on; and at least one probably heavily abridged Dickens novel: _David Copperfield_ in my recollection. I also recall some exerpted parts of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. It was a thick and pretty heavy book for a fifth grader to lug around. There were a lot of other stories and poems in it I no longer recall, and I think part or all of at least one more play.
We used the same “reading” book in the sixth grade, the next year. It was a big book as I said. Then, as noted, I found myself being issued a non-parochial version of the exact same text when I started public junior high two years later, and we also used it in eighth grade. Disappointing, since I’d already read everything in it, more than merely once. They called the class “English” or “English Grammar” by now; and we had different teachers for each class and moved from classroom to classroom, rather than having one nun teach everything in one classroom. But the public school teachers became as wise to me as the nuns had been, quickly determining that I’d read all the stories and knew them fairly well, so when we’d have regular weekly trips to the school library from that class, I’d find myself taken in hand by the librarian along with others of my ilk, and being told to pick and check out supplemental reading for “book reports.” Back then, perhaps as even exist today, some teachers didn’t worry much about pupil self-esteem, and had within their classes different tracks — fast learners, average learners, slow learners; and those of us to ‘read ahead’ or ‘worked ahead’ were rewarded with additional assignments. We read and reported on juvenile novels in the seventh and eight grades. You submitted a written report (done to a specified format) to the teacher; and then an oral one to the class. It was pretty much the same in both seventh and eighth grades. I remember during those two years doing one on one of the “Little House on the Prairie” series, one on Jim Kjelgaard’s series of books on dogs, some on a series of biographies of American figures (David Crockett, Thomas Edison, etc.), and one — I had to talk to the teacher about it first, and the librarian also talked to her for me — on Farmer in the Sky, which I think was just out new. I remember explaining to the class about Malthus in that oral report.
Ninth grade was another change: back to a parochial high school as a freshman and, in my case, the school was a boarding school, taught by the Salesians, where they had us at their mercies twenty-four hours a day, including mandatory two and three-hour study halls, nightly, unless we went out for sports; and believe me, we read when we finished our assignments — there was nothing else you could do. They found you in study hall doodling or something on your papers after you finished your assignments (God Save You if it was before!), they handed you a book to read “for extra credit,” and told you when the report was due.
We had options, of course — all the way down to being expelled; but you don’t need to know about them. Corporeal punishment was alive and doing quite well, thank you, in parochial schools in the 1950s.
After the ninth grade it was back to a pretty good public high school, pretty typical of what is portrayed in Have Space Suit–Will Travel, less the slogan writing and other nonsense RAH noted, for the school I attended had an ‘old school’ faculty and administration; and it graduated scholars, or its pupils didn’t graduate. We had the same anthology (without the religious stories) they’d used in the Catholic High School I’d attended; and we were issued novels to read, some paperbacks (and purchased sometimes I suspect by teachers from their own funds — bear in mind a paperback cost about $0.35 a copy then, so a class of thirty or so would cost about $10.00. Teachers made about $4,000 annually back then) and some hard bound.
I’ve laid this out, not because I think it was an exemplar of anything in particular, but to see what comment, what comparisons or contrasts might be noted by others, to enable some of us to better understand the difficulties we might have in suggesting that Heinlein juveniles might be adopted as teaching texts, today.
We have an extra week here, while everyone is digging out a copy of Galileo. What differences do we know exist with respect to [“wrt”] teaching “reading” or anything else at the late grammar school through high school levels today, or more recently than the 1950s?
What else do we need to know? Any teachers out there? Speak up, please.
David
From: David M. Silver ()
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-10-09 03:10:02 PST
David M. Silver wrote:
>[snip]
>
>Time and
Date: Thursday, October 10, 8 PM* to 11 PM*, ET and > Saturday, October 12, 5 PM to 8 PM, ET >Topic: Rocket Ship Galileo, creating a teacher’s guide >Place: AIM chatroom “Heinlein Readers Group chat” > >Please use the link you’ll find on the Links page of >www.heinleinsociety.org to help yourself into the chatroom. > >**Please note that I’ve done two things, here. I’ve moved the hour for >the Thursday meetings up one hour to accommodate our East Coast and >possibly European readers a bit; and I’ve set the meeting for three >weeks off to give everyone a good opportunity to obtain a copy of the >book. > >RSGalileo is temporarily out-of-print. If you haven’t a copy, a search >today of www.abebooks.com revealed currently 110 copies of it for >sale, ranging from collectors’ prices for near perfect first editions >(don’t ask) down to the $2 or $3 or $10 range for paperbacks in >various condition. I’ve used Abebooks. Takes about 3 days usually to >receive an order by mail, which should be quite sufficient. > >As ever, please post your thoughts on the topic. The more posts, the >better our chats will be. And we’ll be very happy to see as many of >you as possible in the threads that follow and at the chats. > >David M. Silver >www.heinleinsociety.org
On to the rest of the book . . . perhaps.
There’s more than one or two distractions tucked away in Chapter II of RSG, rather directly titled “A Man-Sized Challenge,” aside from its role in carrying forward the “Young Atomic Scientists Go To the Moon” plot. I have to confess I’ve been sent off on a tangent somewhat by one of them.
This was Heinlein’s first juvenile, so knowing what will come means it’s not too much of a surprise to find loose ends, hints of thematic concerns that may continue to be expressed in later juveniles and other writings.
One such is an overall theme of searching for a proper theory of education itself.
That may tie into an overall approach of “teaching” from Heinlein juveniles we might consider.
That may tie into an overall approach of “teaching” from Heinlein juveniles we might consider.
The three young men who will be for this novel and, perhaps, were to have been the continuing characters of the juvenile series, had circumstances continued per the earlier plan, are what remains of a “Galileo Club” of adolescent rocket hobbyists that has been in existence, we are told, several years. Older members however have moved away, gone off to college, or are in military service. These three only remain, and they haven’t bothered to recruit new members. Their club is dying. After they finish this summer, and they’re all planning to leave at the end of their summer to attend college, there won’t be a Galileo Club. Why?
Their failure to recruit new members is explained simply to Doctor Cargraves by Ross, “We work well together and … you know how it is.” How is it? Cargraves thinks he knows more explicitly than the boy. The three are doing serious work; most of their classmates, even though mechanically minded, would be more interested in needling a stripped down car up to one hundred miles an hour than in keeping careful notes.
What made these kids different? Maybe three, perhaps only two-and-one-half, factors. They had the example of the older boys, very likely with some adult help and mentorship, who founded the club – all gone on to adulthood now – that they followed. Someway, however, these three have found lacking an urgency or direction in their own, only a bit younger generation. The time this novel is set perhaps explains it. It is a good ten years after it was written – somewhat more than ten years since the end of a war in which young men their age actually fought and died to “save the world for democracy.”
Heinlein wasn’t too far off on this point in his early predications about the real world this one just missed being, was he? Despite the intervention of another war (“UnWarI” as Oscar Gordon would call it, “The Forgotten War” as a recent history labels it that was held in Korea), by the late 1950s it was true that typical teens seem to have been far more concerned with who got to dance on American Bandstand (or Art LaBeau’s Make Believe Ballroom for we Left Coast types), who “wore short shorts,” and what could be done to a 1957 Chevy to keep it from being “shut down” by a stripped down and hopped up old Ford dragging out of a stoplight than they were with any space race — there wasn’t one to speak of: the Army kept blowing up old V-2s and trying to make the Wac Corporal fly somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico. The world was complacent. Every working man’s child was going to go to college and, absent the nuclear war that only those few obligatory pessimists every society has to have actually believed would happen, we were all going to
From: David M. Silver ()
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-10-09 16:30:50 PST
David M. Silver wrote:
[snip]
>
>On to the rest of the book . . . perhaps.
>
>There’s more than one or two distractions tucked away in Chapter II of
>RSG, rather directly titled “A Man-Sized Challenge,” aside from its
>role in carrying forward the “Young Atomic Scientists Go To the Moon”
>plot. I have to confess I’ve been sent off on a tangent somewhat by
>one of them.
Another distraction is the book Cargraves finds among the Galileo Club’s library, and keeps reading throughout the chapter.
The Project Gutenberg Etext of When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard is available on-line. So I downloaded and read it. Having read the four pages of notes Heinlein submitted to Campbell, preliminary to writing Methuselah’s Children, while at UC Santa Cruz in September at ConJosé, I now understand a little bit more about sources for that story.
When the World Shook involves a long-lived spin-off of Homo Sap that ends up ruling the world, and the problems that sub-species encountered
— as many of the Haggard novels do, so I am told.
>
>[snip]
>Isn’t that a lesson plan topic too?
>
>Lots of chapters thus far untouched: two days to go to the chat.
>Anyone want to take a shot at anything in the novel? Anything at all?
>
>DMS
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-10-10 15:46:01 PST
When and where does this chat take place? I take it that it’s some time today or tonight?
–Jeff
________________________________________________________________
“That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and
random is confusing. In between lies art.”
— John A. Locke
Subject: Re: RAH Reading Group chats 10-10 & 12 — “Back to School” — The Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo
Newsgroups: alt.fan.heinlein
Date: 2002-10-10 16:50:03 PST
Jeff Edwards wrote:
>When and where does this chat take place? I take it that it’s some time
>today or tonight?
>–Jeff
>
>________________________________________________________________
>”That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and
>random is confusing. In between lies art.”
>– John A. Locke
Time and Date: Thursday, October 10, 8 PM* to 11 PM*, ET and
Saturday, October 12, 5 PM to 8 PM, ET
Topic: Rocket Ship Galileo, creating a teacher’s guide
Place: AIM chatroom “Heinlein Readers Group chat”
Please use the link you’ll find on the Links page of
www.heinleinsociety.org to help yourself into the chatroom.
That begins in about fifteen minutes from my sending this e-mail. Don’t worry about showing up late. You’ll need to download AIM software. E-mail me if you have problems.
—
David M. Silver
http://www.readinggroupsonline.com/groups/heinlein.htm
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29
Lt (jg)., USN R’td (1907-1988)
Go To Postings
Here Begins The Discussion Log
You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group chat.”
robertljoseph has entered the room.
Reilloc: Dave, is this the right place, time, etc.?
DavidWrightSr: Yes, LN. Hi Joseph. If you will click on File above and then create shortcut. it will place a link on your desktop to get in automatically
robertljoseph: Thanks. and get well soon.
DavidWrightSr: LN. the chat starts at 8:00 edt
Reilloc: Shows how well I read.
DavidWrightSr: rob did you set up your shortcut?
Reilloc: The Saturday session’s the early one, then?
DavidWrightSr: Yes; 5:00 PM
Reilloc: I think 8:00 EDT’s 7:00 here so I’ll be back in a hour or so…
Reilloc: Thanks, Dave…see you then.
Reilloc has left the room.
DavidWrightSr: Rob. be careful of the ESC key. It will pop you right out of the program
DavidWrightSr: If you have created your shortcut, try exiting and using it to get back in
DavidWrightSr: Man I feel rotten
robertljoseph: I’m in via the shortcut. Hope you’re taking your medicine.
DavidWrightSr: Great. I’ve got to get something to eat and take my nightly dose of pills. See ya later.
DavidWrightSr: I’ll be online but afk, (that’s away-from-keyboard).
robertljoseph has left the room.
robertljoseph has entered the room.
AGplusone has entered the room.
DavidWrightSr: Hi David
AGplusone: Hi, Dave
AGplusone: and Robert Joseph
DavidWrightSr: I’m feeling very rotten tonight, so I doubt that I will participate much.
DavidWrightSr: Rob may be afk for now.
AGplusone: Maybe the chat will cheer you up
TreetopAngelRN has entered the room.
aggirlj has entered the room.
DavidWrightSr: I’ve been running a fever off and on for a couple of days
DavidWrightSr: Hi Jane.
aggirlj: Hi everyone.
AGplusone: Hi, Elizabeth, Jane
TreetopAngelRN: Hi Jane, David S, David w and Robert
AGplusone: Had tea with lots of lemon and brandy is my solution
DavidWrightSr: Hi Elizabeth
aggirlj: I’m microwaving as we speak with a nice Cianti.
aggirlj: Hi Elizabeth.
DavidWrightSr: If Rob comes back, I’ll introduce him. He may be afk.
TreetopAngelRN: Fever? David W
DavidWrightSr: Yes
DavidWrightSr: and chills and my sugar is all over the place.
AGplusone: sore throat?
TreetopAngelRN: lots of fluids?
DavidWrightSr: No, Slava Bogu
DavidWrightSr: I try Elizabeth
BPRAL22169 has entered the room.
DavidWrightSr: Welcome Bill
TreetopAngelRN: it’s difficult, but it would help regulate your sugars
TreetopAngelRN: Hi Bill!
BPRAL22169: Hi — Is it my imagination, or is it a little early?
DavidWrightSr: Yeah, I know
AGplusone: Scheduled it an hour early
BPRAL22169: Thanks, David. I didn’t expect to find anyone here — I just signed on to tell you my computer service guy is going to be here at 6 so I wouldn’t be able to make it.
TreetopAngelRN: this early and then I have time to do laundry, drat:-[
AGplusone: well, you get to make it until he comes … 🙂
BPRAL22169: He was supposed to be here at 5:00 — oh, well.
AGplusone: what’s he trying to fix?
AGplusone: How’s this font btw?
BPRAL22169: The thing is acting like it’s got another major virus infection, but the Virus Protection says no.
BPRAL22169: Very bold.
DavidWrightSr: Which virus program do you use
AGplusone: I can unbold
BPRAL22169: Norton Antivirus
AGplusone: what flavor windows
DavidWrightSr: Thats’ good. If it were the bugbear virus, it should catch it, if you have kept up to date on your updates.
BPRAL22169: ME. Is that Trebuchet font, David?
AGplusone: Comic Sans
BPRAL22169: Your font seems very similar to mine.
BPRAL22169: It’s been escalating for the last 3 weeks, so it’s clearly beyond my ability to deal with it.
BPRAL22169: I even ran the FixKlez patch last night, to no avail.
BPRAL22169: Yes, my last update was on 10/2
AGplusone: Watch for “Jeff Edwards” btw. He posted a “How do I get into the chat” about 90 minutes ago.
DavidWrightSr: what’s his screen name?
BPRAL22169: OK — I just noticed Ron Harrison signed off.
aggirlj: What’s the best antivirus for Mac’s?
BPRAL22169: Macs aren’t targeted very much by viruses.
aggirlj: Good!
pjscott100 has entered the room.
BPRAL22169: Most make use of MSIE
AGplusone: Norton works fine, Jane. Buy the Symantic SystemWorks 2.0 package.
BPRAL22169: Hello, Peter.
AGplusone: Hi, Peter.
pjscott100: Bill, David, David
TreetopAngelRN: Hi Peter
AGplusone: It’ll give you a package of software that includes some other stuff you’ll need.
aggirlj: Thanks. And Hi Peter.
AGplusone: To rebuild the software package occasionally, etc.
BPRAL22169: Let’s see, before it slips my mind, I’m in the middle of transcribing the Publishers Weekly interview with Heinlein, July 1973.
jilyd has entered the room.
AGplusone: That was taped, or videotaped?
DavidWrightSr: Are you planning on having it in an upcoming issue?
DavidWrightSr: Hi Dee
pjscott100: Hi Elizabeth
TreetopAngelRN: Hi Dee!
AGplusone: Welcome Dee
aggirlj: Hi Dee.
pjscott100: aggirlj, have we met?
BPRAL22169: No, it appeared in the magazine. No plans to reprint, but I let people know when a new piece of Heinleinia comes available in electronic versions.
jilyd: Evening, all.
aggirlj: On the newsgroups.
pjscott100: Ah
jilyd: aggirl is Jane, David S.’s sis.
pjscott100: Hi Jane
AGplusone: wiser nicer sister
aggirlj: Only sister.
TreetopAngelRN: He had me wondering if he had another sister…
Reilloc has entered the room.
aggirlj: You too.
AGplusone: ‘kay … how many missing Galileo? or did everyone find a copy?
jilyd: I don’t know whether to be sarcastic or sacharine, David.
aggirlj: Got one, read it.
DavidWrightSr: Folks. I’d like to introduce Robert Joseph. he is a sf author who lives near me in North Georgia. Rob, AGplusone, (David Silver), TreeTop(Elizabeth), aggirlg(Jane who is David Silver’s sister), BPral(Bill Patterson), more….
jilyd: Hi, LN.
Reilloc: Hi, jilyd
AGplusone: sacharine doesn’t suit you, Dee. You’ll have to stick with sarcasm.
DavidWrightSr: pjscott(Peter Scott), jilyd (Dee) and Reilloc(LN Collier)
aggirlj: Hi Robert J
AGplusone: Hi, LN.
Reilloc: Hi, Dave
AGplusone: ‘for we start, Ginny’s regrets … she said she still needs a little extra sleep each day, but she may be able to make Saturdays.
DavidWrightSr: Now that I’ve introduced him, I am going to lie down and just check on you occasionally.
AGplusone: One reason I moved this meeting hour up was to see if I can entice her to make part of it as she gets stronger.
BPRAL22169: She’s been signing off before 4 the last several weeks (PDT)
robertljoseph: I am a longtime fan of Heinlein, having read the juveniles when I was one way back when.
AGplusone: How long has that been Robert?
robertljoseph: I am 59 so u do the math.
aggirlj: You’re no Stranger here.
AGplusone: Another youngster.
AGplusone: 🙂
TreetopAngelRN: aw c’mon, I’ll be old in a couple of weeks
AGplusone: David Wright and I refer to each other as the “elder” and the “younger”
jilyd: Yeah, but everyone’s a youngster to you two Davids, even me. 🙂
AGplusone: He’s 62 (last time I checked, I think), I’m 60 …
BPRAL22169: Feel like Jubal Harshaw yet, David?
robertljoseph: Well, we were all young once and we will all be old once too.
AGplusone: Ah, that’s the Dee I know and love.
aggirlj: Now my mother said a lady never told her age, but there’s 20 months between David S an I.
jilyd: Beats hell out of the alternative, doesn’t it, Robert?
AGplusone: About Galileo … is it as bad as you expected it to be …. “dated” and all that?
aggirlj: Not at all. Great read.
robertljoseph: I don’t know, if the alternative turns out to be what I hope it will be.
TreetopAngelRN: Not that dated.
AGplusone: Why do you feel that, Jane?
jilyd: Good read, but not one of the ones I am drawn back to again and again.
aggirlj: Especially if you read it and suspend knowledge and reality.
AGplusone: It’s an alternative future we never quite made, isn’t it?
aggirlj: No one’s building ’em in their backyard yet that I know of.
jilyd: Robert, I meant of course, in this world. 🙂
AGplusone: We had the Cold War … and dissipation of our efforts into a lot of things ….
TreetopAngelRN: true
robertljoseph: That’s the thing about fiction, it doesn’t always have to mirror reality.
BPRAL22169: Truax is!
pjscott100: my machine is slightly hosed… biab
pjscott100 has left the room.
AGplusone: But it would have been great to have seen atomic rockets by the end of the 1950s.
aggirlj: Who;s Trua?
aggirlj: Truax.
jilyd: I can see it as a “could have been” very easily.
BPRAL22169: Radical rocket builder — his thing is you don’t need the extreme tolerances NASA and the military uses; he carts a 30 ft. rocket around to various places to demonstrate.
aggirlj: Interesting. I’m not up on all of it.
BPRAL22169: He’s a very interesting guy — worth looking up online.
AGplusone: part of the fun of reading Galileo after all these years is tracking the alternatives …
aggirlj: I liked and understood the Nazi element on the moon. Too little of it.
BPRAL22169: “Robert Truax was one of the great originals of American rocketry and a major proponent and inventor of ultra-low-cost rocket engine and vehicle concepts. ”
BPRAL22169: Opening words of: http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/truax.htm
[Editor’s Note: This is not the URL given by Bill Patterson, but was found on a search]
TreetopAngelRN: we need to respark that curiosity in space travel again
pjscott100 has entered the room.
aggirlj: Ahm, what about the space station?
jilyd: But how much interest does “fighting Nazi’s” have for youngsters today. When I was a kid, young boys loved WWII movies and playing soldier. Do they still?
aggirlj: Out of my realm.
TreetopAngelRN: thing is Jane, I don’t know that many kids who are interested in it…don’t know many who play ‘war’ anymore either
BPRAL22169: WWII movies are still being made. Windtalkers showed this past year.
robertljoseph: I enjoyed Heinlein because he usually created scenarios that didn’t necessarily match the mores of the day and I enjoyed his juveniles without worrying about whether he got all the technical stuff correct.
AGplusone: We’d have to ask someone like Sarah Hoyt, who will be here Saturday. she’s got kids still at that age.
aggirlj: Just gangbangers and such.
AGplusone: But did he make a good stab at it, Robert? Would that cam auto-pilot have worked?
TreetopAngelRN: exactly, even in Montana
AGplusone: I think it probably would have.
aggirlj: Liked Joe the computer if I’m not misnaming.
robertljoseph: someone said man can think it he can achieve it.
AGplusone: Would the station they constructed have worked. It reminded me a little of the shelter the boy scout troop puts up on “Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon” one of the boy scout short stories.
robertljoseph: U just have to have a good imagination.
aggirlj: Seemed like it could. Sealed up .
TreetopAngelRN: I think it would work
jilyd: So, if the idea is to interest youngsters, is some WWII background involved, too? Or can they be interested in the space story without paying much attention to the Nazi story?
AGplusone: Can the low-tech solution work? Like the Traux rocket Bill mentioned.
TreetopAngelRN: yes, and much preferred to a high-tech
robertljoseph: I believe though the Nazi’s date it, most people can understand the setting and the time
AGplusone: We played Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone more than just a little when I grew up.
aggirlj: And the Long Ranger and Tonto.
robertljoseph: I lost my coonskin cap early
aggirlj: Lone Ranger.
AGplusone: Frederick Forsythe wrote a pretty good Odessa File that didn’t seem too dated.
BPRAL22169: During the sixties a number of moon stories were written with Russian enemies on the Moon. We’ve run out of credible enemies.
AGplusone: And the Boys From Brazil was a best seller.
aggirlj: That’s where Osama is!
robertljoseph: I think your forgetting the terrorists.
TreetopAngelRN: now we have credible competition
pjscott100: Maybe the next enemies of youth myth will be Al Queda
BPRAL22169: It’s hard to think of Osama bin Laden making an HQ in a lunar crater.
AGplusone: very possibly
robertljoseph: Remember Doc Smith used Space pirates.
AGplusone: King David’s Spaceship ….
jilyd: Could be, but it will be a different kind of story form high tech, I think.
BPRAL22169: This story was written at the end of 1945
TreetopAngelRN: with the Al Queda we are back to fighting among the trees and rocks, not space
aggirlj: Little levity.
robertljoseph: There u go, mixing fiction with reality and expecting it to work.
pjscott100: True. That’s what happens when you outdistance the rest of the world technologically
AGplusone: But we fought the Nazi’s among trees and rockets as well as from the place where von Braun was building V-1s and V-2s
aggirlj: Again?
robertljoseph: I know an author who tries to never reference current events so her readers can’t tell when she wrote it.
jilyd: Rockets on the brain, AG?
BPRAL22169: I think the problem is, from a literary perspective, we dont’ have a myth to work with — the myth will specify the enemy.
TreetopAngelRN: bingo!
pjscott100: eh? are you saying we’ve run out of myths?
jilyd: It must be hard for an outhor to try to figure out which current references will have any meaning after some time has passed.
AGplusone: Heinlein got away from “an enemy” didn’t he, in the rest of the juveniles? he found the enemy, if there was one, was us.
AGplusone: Like Pogo
BPRAL22169: Yes, pretty much, Peter.
robertljoseph: Usually good authors create their own enemies.
AGplusone: The cheats, fakers and takers.
jilyd: I agree. One reason I am not sure RG is the best introduction to RAH for youngsters.
pjscott100: for sure
TreetopAngelRN: which would you prefer, Dee?
AGplusone: Did anyone notice reading Galileo how fast Dr. Cargraves recoiled from any hint of patent infringement?
robertljoseph: The trouble is you are trying to reinvent history. People can accept historical works.
aggirlj: I wanted more exposition, a little more details. But of course I love reading Michener too.
jilyd: I think it might be better appreciated later in the chain, after they are ‘hooked.” (Want to try this? No charge. ;-))
BPRAL22169: I got hooked on Farmer In the Sky and Starman Jones, but most people say it was Have Space Suit that did it for them.
pjscott100: It ought to appeal to fans of October Sky (movie)
robertljoseph: I love reading everything but Stephan King horror.
AGplusone: Do you think youngsters are better introduced to an institutionalized enemy, like “the Hun” or the “Commies” or the “KKK” Dee?
aggirlj: His earlier works were good when he had an editor.
jilyd: Space Cadet is one possibilty.
AGplusone: rather than the ‘we have met the enemy and they is us’ of Pogo?
BPRAL22169: He had the same editor in 1987 as he had in 1947
aggirlj: Not Heinlein, Michener.
aggirlj: King I mean.
BPRAL22169: Ah. Yes, I did find Michener growing . . . tedious.
robertljoseph: That editor had to be well experienced.
BPRAL22169: I find King grown tedious, too.
AGplusone: He slowed down a little at the end. Less interesting topics I thought.
AGplusone: Space Cadet, incidentally, is next up …
aggirlj: My range is I Will Fear No Evil and Stranger . .
BPRAL22169: I dont know — Space had an interhently interesting and dramatic subject, but he made it an awful tough chew.
jilyd: HSSWT is a great choice–lots of self-reliance and low-tech creativity, and the enemy is so completely “fictional.”
robertljoseph: But those were later ones.
TreetopAngelRN: <<
jilyd: Good choices, Jane, but I wouldn’t recommend them for a grammar school setting.
aggirlj: My nose was buried in TV at the earlier stages. Books became friends later.
AGplusone: And we’ll find they probably get better as they go … they would have to, or they’d have gotten tedious for us.
pjscott100: I read the juveniles when so young as to not underestand they were by the same author
BPRAL22169: Space Cadet is one of my favorites — and Forstchen showed the subject could still be sold, quite recently.
robertljoseph: One thing to remember is the students of today are more aware than most of us were at that age.
pjscott100: It was the Future History that got me realizing that there was a particular author to look out for
pjscott100: aware of what???
aggirlj: I think the age group for Galileo is grade school.
AGplusone: Boy, you were lucky, Peter. I knew who the author was and immediately read them, leaving me with only rereading until he wrote new ones. {which was okay}
jilyd: I am handicapped there, Bill. I didn’t find the Heinlein juveniles until I was an adult. My first RAH was Stranger, in late jr. HS.
BPRAL22169: I think by “aware” RJ means “sophisticated.”
robertljoseph: Of the world around us. WE DIDN’T HAVE CNN AND ALL THE REST.
Reilloc: Interesting.
pjscott100: Harrumph. I was reading the newspaper at a tender age.
AGplusone: No. we didn’t, did we … but do grammar school, or early middle school kids really pay much attention to CNN?
Reilloc: Lots of information means you’re more aware…
aggirlj: Depends if mom and dad watch it.
pjscott100: None of yer tabloids, either. And the BBC news made CNN look like Jerry Springer.
TreetopAngelRN: I don’t have Space Cadet=-O
Reilloc: I’ll loan you my son.
BPRAL22169: I remember a lot of talk about the 1960 election.
robertljoseph: my 16 year-old is up on everything.
BPRAL22169: I was 9 at the time.
AGplusone: prepare to order . . . order.
AGplusone: Just as I remember the 1952 election. when I was ten
jilyd: Spoilsport.
aggirlj: I remember Ike.
AGplusone: Listened to a lot of argument about who was better …
BPRAL22169: I think I may have a spare copy around somewhere…
AGplusone: Everyone liked Ike
pjscott100: Well… I remember Harold Wilson. Does that count?
robertljoseph: I actually saw President Kennedy just before he was shot.
aggirlj: Whoa.
Reilloc: I want to forget Bush–both of them.
BPRAL22169: In my grade school, the main topic of conversation was that Kennedy was a Catholic, and did we really want the Pope running the country.
pjscott100: I’d like to forget all three of them
robertljoseph: I remember that.
aggirlj: Yeah, yeah.
TreetopAngelRN: and there isn’t one on the Book Exchange…you do Bill???
BPRAL22169: I have somewhat similar feelings, LNC. Similar to what I felt about Carter: just hunker down and get through it.
aggirlj: And from a Catholic, nee Pagan, who was gonna be a nun.
BPRAL22169: Hold on, I’ll check.
Reilloc: Poor Jimmy.
jilyd: I remeber that, Bill, and other complaints about Kennedy here in Alabama.
Reilloc: He lusted in his heart after consensus.
AGplusone: While we, OTOH, were very proud of him.
AGplusone: Jack
aggirlj: He was a good guy and is still a good guy. Leave him alone.
aggirlj: Jimmy that is.
Reilloc: I liked him.
robertljoseph: I was working fot the Wall st. Journal and all the editorials were pro Goldwater, anti Kennedy. afterwards it did a 180.
Reilloc: I can still remember the “moral equivalent of war” speech.
AGplusone: I still remember “Ask not . . . ”
Reilloc: The moral equivalent cost $1.39 a gallon around here.
robertljoseph: Me too.
aggirlj: $1.59 here.
AGplusone: Everyone remembers that, but they remembered and knew it was great from the very beginning.
Reilloc: Anyway, about those Nazis…
Reilloc: Ever notice how much slinging there is of the accusation in ng’s other than afh?
robertljoseph: Heinlein wasn’t the only one that used them as the patsies.
AGplusone: Yeah, them. I enjoyed Odessa File and Boys From Brazil, LN. Why wouldn’t kids enjoy Nazis?
jilyd: Sorry, folks, gotta go. I may be able to check back, maybe not. have fun!
Reilloc: Enjoy? They were in Topeka a month ago.
TreetopAngelRN: Night Dee!
AGplusone: Too remote …. but pretty black and white …
jilyd has left the room.
aggirlj: They’d have to believe they first of all existed and then that they did what they did.
Reilloc: Everybody enjoyed the carnival atmosphere.
AGplusone: well, enjoy may not be exactly the word
Reilloc: I know what you mean.
Reilloc: Compared to the monsters on PS2 and Gamecube, Nazis are tame.
TreetopAngelRN: you mean ‘interested’
robertljoseph: I’m having a hard time keeping up.
TreetopAngelRN: me too!
pjscott100: I don’t see how anyone could “enjoy” the modern Nazis… just a bunch of skinheads AFAICT
AGplusone: I wanted (hoped) we’d have Gampe here. Wondered whether the way they toned down Galileo for its first publication in Germany might be illustrative. I felt that Heinlein pretty well toned down the Nazis in Galileo.
BPRAL22169: I do have a paperback copy of Space Cadet here.
DavidWrightSr: They were never even called Nazis in the German edition.
aggirlj: Right. But then we were there. Knew about them.
TreetopAngelRN: are you willing to part with it, Bill?
Reilloc: What were they called, DAve?
robertljoseph: As I said earlier, the earlier books should be taken as period pieces in the context of the day.
AGplusone: Compared to how, for example, he wrote the Pan-Asians in Sixth Column
AGplusone: colume
BPRAL22169: Sure — e-mail me your postal address and I’ll send it out in a few days.
pjscott100: Not in the library, Elizabeth?
TreetopAngelRN: Oh thank you from the bottom of my heart!!!!!!!:-D
AGplusone: On the roster I mailed out last month, Bill
AGplusone: She joined just before ConJose
DavidWrightSr: Just Germans. And no mention of the Reich as I recall. I actually started reading the book in preparation for the chat in German until Elizabeth was kind enough to send me a copy.
TreetopAngelRN: not in the library, something I am working on remedying…
BPRAL22169: Send me an e-mail anyway, just so I don’t forget it.
Reilloc: That’s interesting…
Reilloc: It’s almost editorially doing to a nation or a national origin what the Nazis did.
Reilloc: Villainizing the entire country.
AGplusone: Incidentally, there may be a group of books ‘donated’ shortly to the Society that we’ll be able to send out to selected libraries that will appreciate them.
robertljoseph: Sounds great.
aggirlj: Robert J, if you get confused join the party. You have to type fast.
Dehede011 has entered the room.
pjscott100: And de-interleave the multiple threads…
robertljoseph: By the time I hit send, I am several conversations behind
Dehede011: We aren’t on AIM anymore??
BPRAL22169: Yes, this is AIM
Reilloc: What is this, chopped liver?
AGplusone: They are apparently settling an infringement suit against a major thorn and part of the settlement is the stock goes to someone to give to libraries. Someone is going to be the Society
DavidWrightSr: If you were speaking to me, LN, No, they were just treated as a group of German thugs, not in reference to all germans.
Reilloc: Ah.
AGplusone: Ron, you can reach the same room now from AOL.
Dehede011: Beats me, I’m lost. LOL
AGplusone: It just looks a little different when on AOL
Reilloc: I don’t need to run AIM, Sgt. Zim?
DavidWrightSr: You mean you don’t have to have AIM if you are on AOL?
Dehede011: Okay, that is good
Reilloc: How do I get to this on AOL?
AGplusone: Same room name. but the rooms crummier
AGplusone: room’s
Reilloc: Like, unswept and stuff?
aggirlj: LOL
AGplusone: not as good chairs … bar’s overpriced
BPRAL22169: That “crummier” is redundant: you just said it’s AOL; that’s sufficient.
TreetopAngelRN: dirty kleenex on the floor
AGplusone: spots of blood on the walls
robertljoseph: I’m curious. how many of you consider urselves authors?
BPRAL22169: I thought the flames took care of the blood?
aggirlj: All!
Dehede011: If I get quiet without warning I have only ran for the bathroom.
Reilloc: I may log on twice and use my SteveHeadCase AOL identity
pjscott100: <<
TreetopAngelRN: I am an author
BPRAL22169: Kleenex, too!
Dehede011: I’m a writer, I will only be an author after I sell. LOL
AGplusone: Then I’ll have to log on and use my Sgt Zim
BPRAL22169: I don’t know about “author,” but I’m a writer.
DavidWrightSr: Bill is an author and publisher. I have written one minor thing.
pjscott100: If you have an ISBN to your credit, you’re an author, Bill
Reilloc: I used to write home for money
BPRAL22169: Half of one thing, not so minor.
AGplusone: Some of us are wanna bes
TreetopAngelRN: I have one of you books on my shelf Bill, I think that makes you an author
aggirlj: You guys.
BPRAL22169: Aw shucks!
robertljoseph: If ur intersted in new stuff checkout my website at www.everywherebooks.com
Dehede011: I have one manuscript complete and one in the works.
TreetopAngelRN: I am a web author and have received prizes for my writing
Reilloc: Hey, Bill, how much for an autographed copy?
pjscott100: I doubt any of you has my book 🙂
BPRAL22169: That reminds me, David W — you haven’t sent me the revised second half of your article!
robertljoseph: What is it?
AGplusone: Was that your post on the Society board, Robert?
BPRAL22169: LNC: I would charge you more for the rare and unusual UNautographed copy!
DavidWrightSr: I haven’t? Sorry, I thought I had. I’ll get it out shortly.
Reilloc: Not if I create the dedication…
robertljoseph: Yep
BPRAL22169: OK. I’m starting to put the next issue together, so it’s time.
AGplusone: Let’s talk about it somewhere else, later, then.
Reilloc: “To L.N.–in spite of me and everybody else.”
BPRAL22169: Hmmm… OK.
Reilloc: No.
BPRAL22169: Purchase the copy from Jim Gifford, and I’ll send it from here. Let him know the arrangement.
Reilloc: “To L.N.–against my better judgment.”
TreetopAngelRN: my copy of “A Martian Named Smith” is NOT autographed!
pjscott100: my sole published book to date is a computer book
Reilloc: brb
BPRAL22169: Hold onto it! It’s valybull.
TreetopAngelRN: LOL, it’s in a place of Honor
BPRAL22169: At Westercon last year Andy and I chased down someone in the Dealer’s Room to force autographs on her.
robertljoseph: But probably already outdated.
AGplusone: Does writing something for alt.erotic.sex.for.weirdos count for publication?
pjscott100: This is probably a stupid question but it actually has something to do with RSG: do regular firearms work in vacuo?
aggirlj: Oh geeze.
BPRAL22169: OK — my computer service guy is here, so I’ve got to sign off. Have a good one, everyone.
BPRAL22169: ciao
robertljoseph: I wouldn’t claim it.
aggirlj: Bye bye.
BPRAL22169 has left the room.
TreetopAngelRN: Night Bill and thanks again!
AGplusone: No reason why they shouldn’t, Peter.
Dehede011: Night Bill
pjscott100: that’s what I thought, just seemed odd
AGplusone: It’s simple an explosive projecting a missle
Dehede011: But my trusty cap and ball would work just fine
aggirlj: I was hoping you weren’t bored.
[Editor’s Note: Lost several lines here]
AGplusone: How about the format that Heinlein used, the three boys? anyone sorry we didn’t see sequela involving them?
AGplusone: Did we really want to see more of them?
Reilloc: Who? Us?
Dehede011: The subject tonight is Rocketship Galileo??
AGplusone: Yep, us
AGplusone: Yes, Ron
Reilloc: Oh, they were alright but they had to grow up–and they did.
Dehede011: Thanks Dave
aggirlj: But what did they do after?
AGplusone: To an extent they already were all grown up, weren’t they? Very little development among them.
Reilloc: Merged into one Lazarus Long
AGplusone: In a way.
Dehede011: They grew up, became engineers at NASA and 22 years later put a rocket on the moon
AGplusone: What lessons did they learn in Galileo? Hardly a handful.
aggirlj: Again, why not further.
Reilloc: They did.
Reilloc: Everybody became Maureen in the end.
AGplusone: Homer Hickam did, at least.
robertljoseph: Why did they have to learn lessons?
Reilloc: Protagonist change is usually desirable.
pjscott100: Everyone of that age in a Heinlein juvenile did
AGplusone: But the boys we find in later juveniles do, really *do* grow and learn.
Reilloc: This was pretty overt.
AGplusone: It was.
EBATNM has entered the room.
AGplusone: Bill Leamer, for example. Hi, Andy. Welcome
aggirlj: Would a companion novel or a anthology be an idea with Galileo included for the schools?
robertljoseph: I always enjoyed Heinlein for the adventure and escapism from my dreary life.
EBATNM: pjscott100: Hi Andy!
Dehede011: This novel was my intro to Heinlein
aggirlj: How do you do Andy.
Dehede011: Hi Andy
EBATNM has left the room.
aggirlj: Oh, he’s gone.
Reilloc: Aunt Bea had dinner ready.
pjscott100: 🙂
AGplusone: Whereas with three pretty much interchangeable boys in Galileo, there really wasn’t a lot of time to spend teaching them lessons. About the only one that sticks out was the one taught to the boy who was the pilot …
AGplusone: go be a good follower now, or you’ll have trouble having them follow your orders later if the time comes.
aggirlj: It was pretty much a dictatorship. Needed.
pjscott100: Jane, I’m not sure I’d want to bring down the appeal of the anthology to a school like that
robertljoseph: Good sound advice.
EBATNM has entered the room.
Dehede011: Gallileo had a fly wheel to change its orientation — has that ever been used in the real world
EBATNM: Well, hello again!!
aggirlj: Hi.
pjscott100: Yes, many (unmanned) spacecraft do it
Dehede011: Twice is nice
robertljoseph: It was just a gimmick to get there with
Dehede011: Okay, thanks
pjscott100: Not sure when it started… Magellan maybe
Reilloc: Hey, Dave?
AGplusone: So a lot of this ‘low-tech’ works?
Reilloc: What do you think Heinlein learned from writing this book?
AGplusone: Probably that he could do better than follow a model
pjscott100: Your average space probe has three flywheels at right angles where it stores angular momentum
robertljoseph: It works only if you can convince the audience
Dehede011: That he could handle the extra length.
Reilloc: Like, gasp.
AGplusone: the model was Hardy Boys … and it was confining, too much so …
pjscott100: when it wants to change orientation it will do it by braking the flywheels if it can avoid using thrusters
AGplusone: he could also get away from stock plots
AGplusone: didn’t need ‘evil villains’ on the other side of the Moon
Reilloc: What one was next in sequence? Space Cadet?
EBATNM: Wasn’t RG supposed to be the first in a series?
AGplusone: Yes, Space Cadet was next
robertljoseph: What? A plot without evil villains?
AGplusone: Yes, Andy. It was.
pjscott100: and far more sophisticated
EBATNM: “Young Rocketeers” or some such
TreetopAngelRN: I’m back…what did I miss?
aggirlj: Yes, it seemed that the Nazi’s weren’t needed.
AGplusone: Next was supposed to be Young Atomic Scientists on Mars, or The Mysteries of the Moon Tunnels.
AGplusone: They were evidentally going to tie into whatever was found on Mars when the three boys and Cargraves got there.
TreetopAngelRN: The moon tunnels weren’t addressed again, disappointing
aggirlj: Yes, more on that!
AGplusone: It’s a lot like the mysterious machines found on Ganymede in Farmer in the Sky
AGplusone: they don’t pop up again either
robertljoseph: When you can’t explain it it’s always mysterious.
TreetopAngelRN: but then Heinlein wrote on the HUMAN condition, not BEM’s.
aggirlj: I really liked this book. I think it would be a good read like any classic out of our time frame.
AGplusone: Joe Major wrote a spoof on his website which is a ‘sequel’ … the missing Young Atomic Scientists story
pjscott100: Is it any good?
AGplusone: I laughed at it
AGplusone: It’s fun to read
TreetopAngelRN: would like to read that
robertljoseph: That doesn;t say whether iot’s good or not.
pjscott100: last heinlein spoof I read was in the 1984 Analog spoof issue
AGplusone: You can find it going backwards from the link I’ll put up for Space Cadet, Elizabeth
pjscott100: Have asked Stan several times since then to do another but he won’t
TreetopAngelRN: okay
pjscott100: said too many people thought it was real
robertljoseph: Real what?
AGplusone: Yes, that one was controversial
pjscott100: The first line of the story was “Put down that wench!” [sic]
aggirlj: LOL
pjscott100: **** ’em if they can’t take a joke, I say
aggirlj: Not enough stars.
AGplusone: Jane: there’s a story in Expanded Universe that begins with the line: “Put down that wrench!”
AGplusone: You’ll enjoy it when you get to it.
aggirlj: Okasy.
EBATNM: First line of “Blow Ups Happen”
AGplusone: Yes
robertljoseph: I’m glad everyone is so well read.
aggirlj: I’m way behind.
AGplusone: [“Okay, boss. I put her down. No, wadda want me to do wit’ her?”]
TreetopAngelRN: snork!
EBATNM: either well read or anal retentive
aggirlj: Whoa.
AGplusone: can’t I be both?
pjscott100: <<
AGplusone: Sometimes it works … seems as though it depends on hat version. Can’t bookmark off a Mac, jane.
aggirlj: Can’t do it while in AIM.
AGplusone: Look on Dave Wright’s page. Tells you how to put yourself in the room without a bookmark.
aggirlj: Thanks.
aggirlj: And Dave Wright’s page?
AGplusone: About the things Heinlein learned after writing RSG, what do you think he learned, LN, or anyone else?
EBATNM: it says the link contains invalid characters
robertljoseph: That he could get paid for writing.
pjscott100: he didn’t know that already?
aggirlj: My sentiments.
Dehede011: First, that he could handle book length. Second, that he was capable of much better quality than RSG
Reilloc: I think he started writing more like he liked to read instead of trying to just please his audience.
robertljoseph: I agree about the quality comment
pjscott100: was it serialized?
Dehede011: According to Grumbles he had found out early on that he had to write what interested him
aggirlj: Would seem that it should be.
AGplusone: http://www.alltel.net/~dwrighsr/heinlein_1.html is link to the instructions on Dave’s page.
pjscott100: well that might have influenced the writing
robertljoseph: I disagree. he always pleased his audience.
Reilloc: Everybody who ever read Heinlein was pleased?
Dehede011: Yes, but when he did what he liked, we liked Heinlein.
aggirlj: That’s the same isn’t it, he was his best audience.
robertljoseph: I am having more fun writing my third book because of the great reviews of the first two.
AGplusone: Not hardly pleased everyone …. but it may have made it easier for him to write juveniles the way he felt he wanted to write them after he broke into the market using the Victor Appleton, Tom Swift, or Hardy Boys model.
Dehede011: I haven’t sold so I don’t know about that RobertJoseph but I am having fun writing something I want to say
robertljoseph: That helps too
pjscott100: It is dedicated to “Colin, Matt, and Buddy” – who are they?
EBATNM: Didn’t RSG help him to get the contact with Scribners?
Dehede011: Has anyone read John Taylor Gatto?
aggirlj: Titles.
Dehede011: Underground History of Education
AGplusone: Again, Space Cadet, the second is based on another old model … the boy goes away to school sort of thing, particularly a military school, but Dickens and Kipling wrote those.
AGplusone: Which may have been a step up from Appleton.
robertljoseph: Anyone can be sold no days with the print on demand publishers. Only drawback is u have to do ur own promotion and distribution.
Dehede011: J T Gatto seemed to think that the Hardy Boys were written to help keep us simple, or that is the way I remember him
pjscott100: And ditto with Starman Jones
EBATNM: “Tom Brown Schooldays” prototype. The same mine Rowlings used for the “Harry Potter” series
AGplusone: I honestly cannot recall any plots from Hardy boy stories at all.
AGplusone: Exactly, Andy.
Dehede011: Heinlein certainly never wrote down to us
pjscott100: so one could argue that H was simply updating Kipling et al to make the stories more accessible to modern youth
robertljoseph: MY first book was the Twisted claw and it took me forever to read it.
pjscott100: which begs the question of how accessible they are to today’s youth
AGplusone: In a way he did …. made them futuristic, tho, which had an added appeal to some of us.
robertljoseph: Created the excitement and mystery.
jilyd has entered the room.
EBATNM: Same basic cake, different icing
AGplusone: The Light that Failed, for example, got tedious to me when I read it a couple years before.
Dehede011: But is it possible to be totally new
pjscott100: My opinion doesn’t count since I’m too old… we need some actual youth for experimentation
AGplusone: Of course that could have been the kid’s blindness that put me off.
pjscott100: “Fresh meat! Fresh meat!”
Reilloc: I’ve got a kid who liked Magic, Inc. quite a bit.
jilyd: I’m baaack.
TreetopAngelRN: Hi Dee!
pjscott100: Hi D ho
AGplusone: I loved Magic Inc the first time I read it. About 11 or 12.
robertljoseph: Me too
aggirlj: Hi Dee, the Hardy Boys are the sub-thread.
jilyd: I’m supposed to recognize EBATNM, but my memory was shot off in the war. 😉
EBATNM: “Totally new”, no; but one can use a different slant
Reilloc: He liked that in that universe, the rules were so different.
robertljoseph: That’s because they think it was his model
EBATNM: <<
jilyd: Thanks, Andy. Hi.
TreetopAngelRN: Why/when did we start reading science fiction? more exciting than the typical Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew??
robertljoseph: Like I did in my books, space without the spaceships.
EBATNM: Grit’ens
pjscott100: I wonder how well a book would sit with today’s schools that showed boys experimenting with high explosives
Dehede011: brb
AGplusone: Went to librarian and said: he, or anyone else, write anything else like this. She, for reasons known only to god, sent me to HP Lovecraft. Cthuhu was a real trip after that. Didn’t sleep particularly well.
robertljoseph: There u go mixing the real world and fiction.
pjscott100: You have my sympathies, David
aggirlj: Started reading Taylor Caldwell for history.
pjscott100: I can recommend a therapist if it’
pjscott100: s not too late 🙂
AGplusone: I think something has to be done about Nannie Schools.
TreetopAngelRN: I would be fired in a week if I taught school
aggirlj: Why?
robertljoseph: If ur going to worry about expolosives in books worry about all the war ganes.
jilyd: A Librarian sent you to Lovecraft at 11 y.o.?!? I was about 15 when I went on a Lovecraft kick.
AGplusone: Yep. I was a weird little kid.
AGplusone: maybe she figured I could handle it.
aggirlj: I’m saying nothin.
jilyd: Weird librarian, too. 🙂
EBATNM: My guess: the librarian hadn’t read either one and “Magic” toggled a synapse
AGplusone: I only got a little weirder after that, right, Jane?
Reilloc: What Heinlein after “Stranger” is in public school libraries?
robertljoseph: Don’t no nuthin about lovecraft
aggirlj: Nothin.
TreetopAngelRN: I think we should teach kids according to their individual learning patterns, not the teacher’s teaching pattern
EBATNM: Lovecraft is Edgar Allan Poe without the humanity
aggirlj: Excellent!
jilyd: Good description, Andy.
robertljoseph: that sounds sick
jilyd: It is!
AGplusone: As if anyone ever accused Poe of humanity.
pjscott100: Question: obviously “October Sky” showed that in the 50’s boys could build their own rockets without a raft of permits and communal outcry… this still the case?
jilyd: That’s the point.
aggirlj: Are you kidding.
robertljoseph: there was a tv show with andy griffith that did that
AGplusone: I’m going to try to get Barry (doc4kidz) in Saturday, if he doesn’t show up tonight.
AGplusone: He belongs to an rocket club that has kid members
pjscott100: Assuming we’re not talking about youth in downtown Manhattan but more like Buttscratch, Idaho
aggirlj: Oh, great. Do it.
jilyd: Still doing model rockets, but I have serious doubts about “real” ones, these days.
AGplusone: He’s in New Jersey
TreetopAngelRN: it would be tough to do that in a metro area
AGplusone: Pretty metro where he is …
EBATNM: Kids still fire off model rockets at our county fairgrounds both with and without “adult” supervision
EBATNM: but I live in WayandBeyondNowhere
robertljoseph: Well, kiddos its past my bedtime. y’all have fun, hear?
pjscott100: but make their own casings? mix their own propellant?
pjscott100: night robert
EBATNM: bye robert
TreetopAngelRN: I am 45 miles from Buttscratch, Idaho…
robertljoseph has left the room.
aggirlj: By Robert J
TreetopAngelRN: Night Robert, thanks for coming
jilyd: Good to meet you, Robert.
EBATNM: I am in Capitan NM – home of a dead bear
EBATNM: Smokey, that is
aggirlj: No you aren’t.
Dehede011: see you robert
aggirlj: Better not be.
AGplusone: But I had to chuckle about the coverage of the late timothy mcveigh and his dumb and dumber friends on the farm back in wherever he spawned. Goodness gracious! The news reported: “they blew up explosives on their farm.”
aggirlj: Don’t they all.
TreetopAngelRN: LOL! lots of open places for that
jilyd: Majkes you want to say, “And your point is…?”
pjscott100: Seems like there’s enough opportunity for that to happen by accident on a farm
AGplusone: Big difference between what Heinlein protrayed and that, however. They seemed to be going solely for the big bang.
EBATNM: The problem isn’t people using explosives, the problem is Idiots using explosives
Dehede011: Yes, Dave, I read that and recalled me and my buddy doing that at 12 out on the farm
EBATNM: of whatever age
AGplusone: Nevertheless: I made bombs when I was a kid.
aggirlj: I started a fire.
pjscott100: I had a lab at the bottom of the garden and successfully made gunpowder
pjscott100: (Before I saw Captain Kirk do it)
jilyd: Plenty of mental juveniles at 50+.
AGplusone: Got a bunch of cherry bombs and tied them together …. put them in a can and damned near killed myself with the shrapnel.
aggirlj: LOL
pjscott100: Fortunately, I was unsuccessful at making nitroglycerine
TreetopAngelRN: wasn’t allowed bomb materials without adult supervision, Dad loved to make things go “BOOM”
aggirlj: fortunately I could put it out.
TreetopAngelRN: I learned how to make a flamethrower out of a can of Pledge
pjscott100: Discovered that you need the fuming versions of sulphuric and nitric acids, and these were strangely hard to come by for 11-year olds
aggirlj: Geeee.
AGplusone: Hair spray worked better. Used to kill ants with one.
TreetopAngelRN: Pledge sticks and burns
aggirlj: Try to kill maggots.
jilyd: Quelle surprise, pjs.
aggirlj: it don’t work.
AGplusone: Kids do stuff like that. Better to have them do it supervised. Good example: the first rocket test in October Sky.
jilyd: E! does that make it more napalm than flamethrower?
AGplusone: Unsupervised, nearly killed the neighborhood off.
pjscott100: Heh, I made a two-stage bottle rocket
TreetopAngelRN: after that decided to just take things apart and figure out how they work…it is a napalm flamethrower, Dee!
pjscott100: Just tie two together, twist the fuses together and make one a bit longer
AGplusone: Anyone a boy scout troop leader, etc., recently?
AGplusone: LN. How old are your kids?
pjscott100: It took off and the second stage ignited at the top of the arc
aggirlj: Good Idea.
TreetopAngelRN: cool, Peter!
Reilloc: 12, 14 & 20
jilyd: AG, that sounds like a later version of letting little kids light candles, etc. with supervision so they don’t feel the need to play with matches. Sounds reasonable to me.
AGplusone: I recall being taught by the Scouts to use firearms at that age. Also, a family I lived with briefly.
TreetopAngelRN: my experiments with supervision were more sucessful that those without
aggirlj: Sounds familiar. However, unsupervised is more fun!
TreetopAngelRN: Dad could get the good stuff
AGplusone: Gave me a course in using firearms took me down to a license store, had me test, got a hunting license. [of course, what they really wanted was the extra deer ticket]
aggirlj: Oh!
TreetopAngelRN: I hated sneaking around!
pjscott100: Haha
AGplusone: Remember the Deckers, Jane?
aggirlj: Yes.
aggirlj: Tell the story or not.
TreetopAngelRN: sounds like the reason to have three little gorls have fishing licenses
TreetopAngelRN: girls
AGplusone: They also taught us how to play horseshoes. Jane was better than I was. Which annoyed me somewhat!
jilyd: Hey, I liked “gorls.”
TreetopAngelRN: LOL
aggirlj: Eye/hand.
aggirlj: That’s why I’m a pool shark.
AGplusone: The point is: if you teach safety you do better than simply forbid everything.
jilyd: I never tried the explosives experiments as akid, but my husband’s best one was building a pipe gun that blew holes in the sides of freight cars.
AGplusone: But some schools fear anything so much they avoid thinking that far ahead.
TreetopAngelRN: I earned a .22 pistol from my Dad for my hyperawareness of gunsafety. Ruger Bearcat!
jilyd: Yeah, like “abstinence only” works.
AGplusone: You know, if we could just elect school board members from the Heinlein Society we could do a lot ….
Reilloc: Abstinence along with other measures works?
TreetopAngelRN: We made a bean shooter out of a reversed vacuum cleaner, could shoot pinto beans twnety feet
jilyd: I like that plan, E.
Dehede011: The farmers down home had an ingenius way of teaching marksmanship and gun safety
AGplusone: How was that, Ron?
Dehede011: They would give you 12 shotgun shells and you had better come back with close to 12 rabbits
Dehede011: Or you didn’t get anymore shells.
AGplusone: Sounds like Daniel Boone, or Audie Murphy …
jilyd: LN, I don’t mean that abstinence doesn’t work, but that only teaching abstinence obviously doesn’t work with all kids.
Reilloc: If it worked, there’d be no kids.
Dehede011: They really did it and it concentrates you on watching where you shoot
AGplusone: I remember reading books where ol’ Dan’l cut the bullets in half so he’d have a better chance of comin’ home with a rabbit
Dehede011: I never heard that one.
Dehede011: That son of a gun got my 4 greats grandpa killed
AGplusone: Those were in books that we in school libraries when I was in junior high
jilyd: Front to back or side to side?
jilyd: Cuttting bullets, I mean.
aggirlj: Yeah. LOL..
AGplusone: musket balls
Dehede011: I don’t know where the indian shot grandpa
Dehede011: LOL
jilyd: Shoulda used a smiley.
pjscott100: Those left-hand bullets were never any good for hitting anything
AGplusone: ’tis true …
TreetopAngelRN: I need to head out or I will never get the laundry done! Night everyone!
jilyd: Unless you were lucky enough to split an ambidexterous bullet.
EBATNM: G’night
aggirlj: Bye Eliz, may I email you?
TreetopAngelRN: you bet, Jane!
aggirlj: Thanks.
TreetopAngelRN has left the room.
jilyd: ‘Night, Elizabeth.
Dehede011: night
pjscott100: My friend drowned in a bowl of muesli. He was pulled in by a strong currant.
BPRAL22169 has entered the room.
AGplusone: wb
BPRAL22169: Made it — I think.
aggirlj: You did.
pjscott100: Hi Bill
Dehede011: Just in time to say goodbye
aggirlj: and Hi
jilyd: Hi, Bill.
Dehede011: Howdy Bill
AGplusone: Hitting 3d hour now ….
aggirlj: Time flies.
pjscott100: Dyslexic man walks into a bra…
BPRAL22169: I wondered if you would go for a third hour. The tech just packed up and left.
aggirlj: Solution?
AGplusone: suggest take another ten minutes …. Bill, you have the conn (you win the bobby prize for signing back on) … brb
AGplusone: back at 5 past hour
Dehede011: brb
jilyd: pj, you are really tring to strat something here, aren’t you?
Reilloc: Descartes is in a bar and the bartender asks him if he’s like another drink.
Reilloc: Descartes says, “I think not.”
pjscott100: “I drink, therefore I am”
Reilloc: And disappeared.
pjscott100: Just trying to liven things up
jilyd: Illiterate fingers! You are really trying to start something.
aggirlj: And you’re doing great.
AGplusone: eeeew!
aggirlj: You were gone.
jilyd: Not complaining, but be careful what you wish for.
AGplusone: I think not!
pjscott100: Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other “Does this taste funny to you?”
AGplusone: :::::::poooof::::::::
aggirlj: Oh man.
Reilloc: Termite walks into a saloon and asks, “Is the bartender here?”
aggirlj: Okay.
aggirlj: What do you call a Jewish Princess’ water bed?
jilyd: Best/worst one I heard lately was about two women who haven’t seen each other in a while. They meet and are talking. The first one says, “I heard you buried your husband.”
Reilloc: Three-legged dog walks into a bar and says, “I’m looking for the hombre who shot my paw.”
jilyd: Second one says, “Well, darling, I had to. He died.”
aggirlj: The Dead Sea.
pjscott100: A man walks into a bar with a roll of tarmac under his arm and says “Pint please, and one for the road.”
aggirlj: Oh no.
Reilloc: If Nathan Hale were Hennie Youngman: Take my life–please.
aggirlj: Hmmmm.
BPRAL22169: That one got a laugh.
aggirlj: The only other one’s I know are visual.
EBATNM: Bill you’re supposed to be leading this chat – what’s the topic?
AGplusone: Woman picks up a hitchhiker. Hitchhiker sees bag. “What’s in the bag?” Woman: “a bottle of wine for my husband.” Hitchhiker: “good trade?”
BPRAL22169: I AM? Hi, Andy, I didn’t see you there.
EBATNM: I’m not there, I’m here.
BPRAL22169: I think the announced topic is teaching from Heinlein — we were talking about Rocket Ship Galileo when I had to leave.
aggirlj: So what’s everybody drinking?
Reilloc: Bush’s first night in the White House and he sees the ghost of Lincoln…
BPRAL22169: And I’m not leading the chat, just holding down the conn so it doesn’t walk out in disgust.
Reilloc: Asks for advice on how best to serve his country…
AGplusone: Gallo Brandy VSOP
Reilloc: Lincoln replies…
Reilloc: Take in a play.
jilyd: Amateur radio operator says to another Ham “My wife said she’d leave me if I didn’t get rid of my radios. Over.”
BPRAL22169: Hear, hear!
AGplusone: LOL
EBATNM: “Come on all you big young men, Uncle Sam needs your help again …”
jilyd: Good one, LN.
aggirlj: I’m doing this subtle California! Chianti, Joseph Filippi, bought at the vineyard on my last trip to L..A.
BPRAL22169: I know intellectually things would probably not be worse with Gore in the White House, but GWB repels me.
Reilloc: I liked yours, Dee.
AGplusone: delayed laugh … took me a while, Dee.
aggirlj: Going to graduate to Grand Manier.
jilyd: Try B&B.
Reilloc: You’ll be drunk on your r’s.
EBATNM: there ain’t _nothing_ subtle about California
AGplusone: Heinlein graduated a Grand Marnier, USNA ’29
aggirlj: You betcher.
pjscott100: If I were governor I’d change the entrance signs on the roads to read “Welcome to California, State of Emergency”
jilyd: EEeww.
Dehede011: Y’all be good, I am heading for my pillow
Dehede011 has left the room.
aggirlj: Cia.
AGplusone: Nice to see you Ron
aggirlj: I mean Ciao.
jilyd: Pleasant dreams.
EBATNM: bye ron
AGplusone: Well, ’tis five past …..
pjscott100: I’ve got a parrot downstairs going ballistic, so I’m outta here
BPRAL22169: Take my conn — please!
AGplusone: You stand relieved Mr. Patterson.
aggirlj: Nice chatting.
Reilloc: Hey, Bill?
jilyd: LOL, Bill.
pjscott100: It’s his tailoring
BPRAL22169: You have the watch, sir!
BPRAL22169: Yo?
Reilloc: My ex-wife’s maiden name’s Patterson.
Reilloc: Want her?
BPRAL22169: I’m so sorry . . . I didn’t do it!
BPRAL22169: The fearsome thing is . . . I might already have her.
Reilloc: Wouldn’t have to remonogram the towels.
BPRAL22169: And I don’t want to know.
aggirlj: Oh my God.
pjscott100: bye bye, you wild and crazy group
AGplusone: About RSG …. would Heinlein have written it differently if he’d looked at “Misfit” as a juvenile?
aggirlj: S’long.
pjscott100 has left the room.
AGplusone: s’long Peter
BPRAL22169: Someone with a ballistic parrot is calling US wild and crazy.
jilyd: Good night.
Reilloc: night, pjs
aggirlj: Night.
Reilloc: well shit.
Reilloc: Late, again.
AGplusone: Why not use Misfit as a juvenile to teach, for example. Written earlier even than RSG?
aggirlj: Yeah, I know. We’re having too much fun.
BPRAL22169: I don’t know about that — he was trying to write a conventional series juvenile — Young Atomic Engineers was supposed to be the start of a Tom Swift-like series.
Reilloc: Teach what, though, Dave?
AGplusone: But Misfit was what he was really good at …. teach growing up, rather than “stuff” like ballastics, etc.
Reilloc: I get the feeling we’re talking about instilling a value system and not just rocketry.
aggirlj: Sounds right.
BPRAL22169: But “Misfit” teaches surveying trig and spacesuit design and bunches of stuff.
AGplusone: You see, I see a tension between the two types, and he gets back to writing Misfits rather than Tom Swift’s Electric Grandmothers.
AGplusone: It do, don’t hit?
jilyd: Well, they used to choose the stuff for elementary reading materials for just that reason. Still do, I guess, but different values sometimes.
EBATNM: Establishing values used to be the point about education – before it became entranced with mere skill training
Reilloc: That’s because he was shooting for the value system concept overall.
Reilloc: Andy’s right.
Reilloc: But is that wrong?
BPRAL22169: Yeah — he had to talk himself into doing the juveniles.
EBATNM: the money helped
EBATNM: or is that too cynical?
Reilloc: I’ll send the rest tomorrow
AGplusone: The cuts from Misfit? You’ve seen them, Bill. Would they have also fit well into a juvenile that was teaching values and maturity?
aggirlj: And it’s gone. No not cynical.
AGplusone: The cuts as I understand them were the friction between Libby and the other boy.
BPRAL22169: Not so much, I think — it was kind of 50’s school-bully stuff that campbell had him cut.
BPRAL22169: Schiapperelli.
Reilloc: The dress designer?
AGplusone: “Misfit” (jane) is a story from the collection Revolt in 2100.
BPRAL22169: They made the story a touch more “salingeresque”
BPRAL22169: The 18th century astronomer, I think.
AGplusone: [from the “Future History” series, as you’ll hear us call it]
jilyd: LN, how do you select reading materials for kids (past the “See Spot run” level) without reinforcing some kind of values? If it has enough interest to keep kids reading, it will have conflict, and thus some kind of values.
EBATNM: Libby learns his ability is something to be proud, not ashamed, of a very worthwhile lesson to young people
BPRAL22169: Essentially he kept the growth stuff that the original version had in it — he just attributed it to other factors.
jilyd: The real question is what values, it seems to me.
aggirlj: Honest ones.
BPRAL22169: So the cut story has the same value-materials.
Reilloc: I go for the entertainment value.
aggirlj: Honorable at least.
jilyd: I go for both.
AGplusone: “Man Without a Country” has entertainment value, doesn’t it?
AGplusone: Fantastic tale, I thought, when I first read it.
Reilloc: It was pretty well written.
BPRAL22169: There are some things people just need to hear — validation for a bright, alienated young person is always in order
EBATNM: and that ability is worth-while to society – Moral: When you are true to yourself you are also true to society
aggirlj: That depends.
BPRAL22169: Very Heinleinian.
Reilloc: True to yourself, eh?
EBATNM: Here I’m just talking about the story in Real Life ymmv
Reilloc: Like avoiding the topic of old age like the plague even though you’re getting old and even dying?
BPRAL22169: Always valuable — even when society doesn’t want it.
AGplusone: Libby in “Misfit” is exactly the same kind of misfit that I remember reading about in Henry Farber’s tales about the alienated hot-rodder kids. Bright, but left out socially.
aggirlj: Old is perception, too deep I feel.
BPRAL22169: And often enough, not wanting something is a strong sign that that is just exactly what you need.
Reilloc: I want some geriatrics on the moon fighting Nazis.
Reilloc: They’re the only ones who remember who the Nazis were.
aggirlj: They’d win,
BPRAL22169: You know, David, you’re right, and I hadn’t thought about that — it was a genre that came into being in the late 40s and wasn’t much represented in SF before that.
AGplusone: Farber’s solution was get them off the drag races in the city streets and into shows and authorized strips and then onto engineering schools.
EBATNM: Steven Lucas was a drag racer before he went to USC (alas – he degenerated into a movie maker)
AGplusone: Sure, a good example ….
BPRAL22169: George Lucas?
EBATNM: Yeah, him
aggirlj: In the dessers.
BPRAL22169: Or were you portmaneauing Steven Spielberg with George Lucas?
aggirlj: Desserts.
EBATNM: No, I was just being an idiot (but thanks for the attempted save)
Reilloc: I can’t see Big Daddy Don Garlitz at MIT
BPRAL22169: So many, MANY things to not say…
EBATNM: Big Daddy …. who?
Reilloc: See?
EBATNM: Bill: *pfffft*
AGplusone: Perhaps not, but … remember the scene in American Grafitti when the bright kid finally finds Wolfman Jack at the station?
Reilloc: Want an Eskimo Pie?
AGplusone: Almost, but not quite a mentor …
EBATNM: Reality versus Fantasy ?
AGplusone: in a way …
Reilloc: Sec…I’ve lost my new kitten..
Dehede011 has entered the room.
DeHEde011 has left the room.
AGplusone: instead of pursuing the blonde in the pink T-bird
aggirlj: yes.
AGplusone: Anyway, Heinlein was so much better at developing the morality or character of the kids he couldn’t have remained doing the formulaic Hardy Boys long. He’d have gone batty.
EBATNM: agree
aggirlj: Baited breath.
EBATNM: adults esp. adults in charge of education seem bound & detemined to underestimate their charges
BPRAL22169: Gary Westfahl wrote an interesting article a few years ago about how Heinlein always fiddled around with format after a very conventional start.
EBATNM: and that is the whole problem with Hardy boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, & etc.
BPRAL22169: He was talking about Project Moonbase, but it applies to the fiction as well.
AGplusone: The stories dumb down. I agree with someone earlier who said RSG is a grammar school story …. some of the later ones certainly are not grammar school.
jilyd: Sort of like B. Franklin, wasn’t it, learning to write by first copying others?
jilyd: Learn the conventions before you fiddle with them.
AGplusone: Once you get to about Between Planets and Farmer I think you’re out of grammar school, although the tales are still fun for younger kids.
EBATNM: RAH certainly used very conventional furniture to produce outre results
AGplusone: And I think that was the huge tension between RAH and Dagliesh … she wrote really stupid escapist stories for babies.
BPRAL22169: That’s what the librarians felt comfortable buying.
EBATNM: I have to say, and I say this with great pride, I have never, ever, read Dagliesh
AGplusone: And the 50s were a conservative time, they say, although I’m beginning to have my doubts when I think about what and how I was taught, really.
AGplusone: They didn’t seem to have problems with my having a chemistry set.
BPRAL22169: You’re seeing it through the lens of experience: America has been dumbing down for a long time now.
AGplusone: They didn’t seem to have problems with my having a hunting license at age 13
aggirlj: I never ever had a teacher suggest sci fi.
AGplusone: My boy scout troop had (literally owned) M-1s, same thing as the surplus M-1s they use in RSG
jilyd: But now schools do more babysitting than teaching. And I can’t just blame it on teachers, that seems to be what we want out of them.
AGplusone: And with the Scoutmaster’s signature and your parents permission, you could actually buy one yourself!
jilyd: Try that now! ;(
BPRAL22169: Can you imagine the panic if a Scout troop was found with an M-1 now!
Reilloc: Or a can of hairspray.
AGplusone: How do you get a marksmanship merit badge now?
aggirlj: Or a plastic spoon.
EBATNM: The problem is not with the kids but the parents whom have not yet grown-up themselves
jilyd: Plastic dart pistols?
AGplusone: paint balls?
Reilloc: It’s Marxmanship now.
jilyd: LOL.
aggirlj: Archery, do they have that anymore.
jilyd: But not in joy.
jilyd: Did archery in HS PE, way back when. I don;t know about now.
aggirlj: Cuts.
AGplusone: Cuts are a big problem ….
aggirlj: Arts cuts, club cuts.
AGplusone: anything objectionable to anyone becomes a target
aggirlj: Right.
Reilloc: Vouchers’ll take care of it.
jilyd: But administration payroll just keeps going up.
aggirlj: Get ’em in place.
AGplusone: and if a nanny mind comes along, bye-bye archery
EBATNM: Mark Twain: “First God made idiots for practice. Then He made school boards.”
aggirlj: The point is that if there are not clubs, and science clubs, we are heading back, way back.
AGplusone: Read a hilariously sad article in the Times today. New principal decided that teachers, if they wore hats, had to wear hats that were in the school colors. So a special ed teacher who missed the rule wore a beige hat and the teacher
AGplusone: and his class were run out of the school district.
Reilloc: My school colors were beige and eggshell
jilyd: Enough teachers wear hats to school to make a rule?
aggirlj: How neutral.
Reilloc: Swiss
AGplusone: The teachers teach, and the idiots become administrators
aggirlj: Right.
aggirlj: just like critics.
AGplusone: gotta have a rule for everything. Eliminates the need to think.
EBATNM: Bill resembles that
BPRAL22169: Obviously the teacher’s crime was not that he/she did not wear school colors: it’s that he/she wore beige.
jilyd: Oh, yes. But was it better for the only way to get an outstanding teacher a pay raise toe be to promote them out of teaching and into administration?
BPRAL22169: Rules are for children; adults regard rules as the raw material for decision, not as ends in themselves.
AGplusone: Principal must have been a real nut: kept telling the teacher his “bonnet” was the wrong color.
jilyd: Maybe the teacher should have asserted that he was color blind and fell under ADA.
Reilloc: Ha.
aggirlj: LOL
Reilloc: Fell under ADA
BPRAL22169: now that’s thinking!
jilyd: Creative defenses ‘R’ us.
EBATNM: A friend of mine homeschools. Her 9 year old is doing jr. high school work and her 14 year old is doing university level work.
AGplusone: Well, the reason the Times reported it is several of the special ed parents are suing the district over it.
AGplusone: Talking to the school board did no good
aggirlj: Does it ever.
jilyd: Biggest problem I’ve seen woth homeschooling is older kids that still think the world is always going to be as kind as mom and dad.
AGplusone: That’s another problem with term limits. Two terms and out, so school boards are more like neophytes trying to become assemblymen
Reilloc: B&B?
jilyd: LN–Huh?
aggirlj: Okay. Being sheltered is not bad. As long as you are warned about the failures you may have.
AGplusone: Brand and Benedictine?
AGplusone: Brandy
EBATNM: School is its own La-La land.
jilyd: That’s the B&B I know, but I am not sure where it came in here.
jilyd: Jane, it seems to me that a fair portion of the homeschooling parents are definitely making a real effort at wrapping their children in cotton wool.
EBATNM: eventually the only person who can teach you is you
AGplusone: I disagree
aggirlj: Too bad, not good.
jilyd: Eventually, yes.
jilyd: Disagree which, ag?
AGplusone: a good teacher can teach almost anyone
EBATNM: Oh, other people can _help_ but you gotta do the work
AGplusone: let them teach!
Reilloc: Who can afford good teachers?
AGplusone: I did. Picked up every RAH juvie as soon as it appeared in the school library
aggirlj: You gotta afford it. Good God. Won’t they learn.
Reilloc: The left teaching for dotcoms and left there for greener wallets.
jilyd: I think Andy is saying (to quote Molly Ivins) “I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.”
AGplusone: sure he is
EBATNM: exactly, THank You
jilyd: And I think he has one part of the truth, there.
AGplusone: but the point, getting back to my paid political announcement is: tools come from books like these.
Reilloc: Which came first?
jilyd: LN, you keep being so brief as to be cryptic, for me.
Reilloc: Books like these come from somewhere.
AGplusone: And with that: next meeting is two weeks. Space Cadet is also temporarily out of print. Use the abebooks, etc., and order it …. have to have teachers using them, but just getting them back in the libraries are a start.
aggirlj: Are we calling it quits?
AGplusone: but we’ll meeting again, of course, Saturday … yep … in 13 minutes.
jilyd: Ah. Harlan Ellison did one of his little talks on the SF channel several years ago about the problem with cultural references when most of your cultural material comes form MTV.
EBATNM: that’s a frightening thought
BPRAL22169: I think this must be a way to forget some of the mountain of data we inherit.
AGplusone: Or even just from the school Harry Potter attends.
aggirlj: Now, have you read it?
BPRAL22169: Hogwarts — and I’ve never read one of them.
EBATNM: If they get kids reading, what the heck
aggirlj: I’ve read it.
AGplusone: I’ve read the first. It was less than I thought it would be. I understand her last one was much larger.
jilyd: If we want the next generation of writers, etc. to have something worthwhile to say, we had better hope they find something worthwhile to read.
aggirlj: I may read the next one.
BPRAL22169: There may not BE a next generation of writers.
AGplusone: I’d rather read about a kid named James Madison Marlowe ….
Reilloc: It’s just a silly phase we’re going through, I think.
BPRAL22169: It could be.
Reilloc: People forget and rediscover.
jilyd: Harry Potter (1st 2) was okay, and it was great to see news stories about kids standing in line for the new release. Really would be sad if the kids stopped reading there, though.
BPRAL22169: That has happened before — Bach rediscovered by Mendelssohn, for example. Melville.
Reilloc: People hunger for meaning.
Reilloc: They’ll look again where they used to look.
BPRAL22169: Some of them will — others will just go make some more.
Reilloc: Writing won’t die so long as there’s any kind of market for it.
BPRAL22169: That’s true.
EBATNM: That’s what culture is supposed to do – transmit meaning
aggirlj: Gotta go now. Was a pleasure. Lots of fun.
aggirlj has left the room.
AGplusone: “time binding”
jilyd: See you, Jane.
EBATNM: *sniff* bye
Reilloc: Bye, Jane
Reilloc: Shit
BPRAL22169: But I suspect within 15 years there will be off-the-shelf software that lets 10 year olds make their own CGI movies.
Reilloc: New rule.
AGplusone: she moves fast
Reilloc: Have to announce departing five minutes prior to doing it.
AGplusone: I agree. I’ll tell her.
EBATNM: good rule
AGplusone: We post these logs, LN …
BPRAL22169: Curious. AOL shows me signons but not signoffs.
AGplusone: and I know at least one person reads them ….
Reilloc: YOu can do that with Macromedia Flash now, Bill
AGplusone: Jane’s not on AOL
jilyd: CGI movies for 10 y.o. is just another way to tell a story. A good thing.
BPRAL22169: Got it. Yes, but Flash is clumsy — it’s like Melies coloring in each frame of his movies.
AGplusone: Some one ask me if I want another drink ….
Reilloc: How about another drink, Dave?
jilyd: All together now, “Do you want another drink, David?”
BPRAL22169: Do you have a roll of tarmac under your arm?
AGplusone: Closing log: 19:55:32 PM
EBATNM: DO YOU WANT ANOTHER DRINK DAVID?
AGplusone has left the room.
Reilloc: He broke the rule.
jilyd: I’m gone, too. Everyone have a great evening.
EBATNM: I outta here too, I guess
EBATNM: bye all
BPRAL22169: Me, too. Nice to reconvene after a long vac.
EBATNM: *poof*
Reilloc: Night, Dee and Andy and Bill and All
EBATNM has left the room.
Reilloc has left the room.
jilyd has left the room.
BPRAL22169: You, too. Ciao.
BPRAL22169 has left the room.
Final End Of Discussion Log
