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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 9/18/98 -- Vol. 17, No. 12
MT Chair/Librarian:
Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 732-957-5087 jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 732-949-7076 njs@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
Rob Mitchell MT 2E-537 732-957-6330 robmitchell@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-2070 eleeper@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-447-3652 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society
meets irregularly; call 201-652-0534 for details, or check
http://www.interactive.net/~kat/njsfs.html. The Denver Area
Science Fiction Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of
every month at Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
1. URL of the week: http://www.e-horizon.com/eventhorizon/. Event
Horizon Magazine: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. I must be different from other people. When all I have is a
hammer, everything looks to me like my thumb. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. I have recently returned from the World Science Fiction
Convention, this year called Bucconeer and held in Baltimore,
Maryland. I would tell you about the convention, but that is
really more Evelyn's province. She certainly is better than I am
in writing about panels she has attended. There are some things
that I take some pride in having written. My panel descriptions
are not one of them. They always comes out like:
Pohl said, "The Internet will certainly change a
lot."
Silverberg said, "Yes, and in a surprisingly short
space of time."
Somehow I can take a discussion from some of the leading experts in
a field, transfer it to paper, and it comes out sounding like an
expository lump from a 1930s Tom Swift novel. There historically
were artists who could paint some of the liveliest people in their
society and when they got them on canvas they looked dead and
mounted like a butterfly. Somehow my panel writing is like that.
I should study Evelyn's style and imitate it, but why compete?
Better to let Evelyn do what she does so well.
It was nice to see this convention that the media took some notice
that there was a science fiction convention in town and the
publicity was not all bad. Years ago when science fiction was
looked down upon, the publicity was never good. The words that
come to mind are patronizing and condescending. These, of course,
were the days when you were not allowed to read science fiction in
school as it was the wrong sort of literature. You were allowed
1984, BRAVE NEW WORLD, and I got away with FRANKENSTEIN, but Wells
and Verne were considered simply junk reading. These days science
fiction is more acceptable. I think the attitude is "Please,
please, please. Read anything. Read anything that is words on
paper." What was goofing off for us in school has become model
behavior for today's children. So I am not sure the modern
acceptance of science fiction is entirely a good thing. It may be
an act of desperation. These days you don't insult science fiction
because it is accepted. And you certainly don't insult comic
books. Comic book readers may well be the most militant group that
is not a government-approved minority. If you don't show proper
respect for comic books, they will hand you your head.
But I digress. Back when science fiction was less respectable to
the mainstream we got the same sort of coverage in the newspapers.
The coverage of the science fiction conventions would have
headlines like "The Martians Have Landed." And they would show a
fan in some outrageous Star- Trekky hall costume. And we used to
complain that they did not show what the science fiction convention
was really about. We have serious panels. We discuss important
social issues. But the newspaper reporter would always find the
guy with the ray gun and the tights and plaster his picture all
over the entertainment section. Generally any sort of newspaper
coverage was an embarrassment.
These days the coverage is better, but also I blame the newspaper a
lot less for being patronizing. I was wrong to blame the
newspaper. After all, the reporter was just giving his impressions
of what he was seeing. And let's face it, not everybody makes the
same amount of impression. The half- dressed fat woman wrapped up
in a large live snake--and yes we used to get them--certainly knew
that not everybody makes the same amount of impression and was
taking advantage of the fact. That's why she wore the costume.
She wanted attention and she did get it. And we believe
democratically that everyone in fandom should be able to dress like
they want and grab as much attention as they can. Is it really
fair to blame the reporter because she succeeded? He was
describing what he saw and you just can't miss a woman dressed in a
snake. I can't blame the reporter for what he saw. Sometimes in a
democratic society you leave a lousy impression on other people.
From over in Turkey our country seems like one ravaged with AIDS
and with ten- and twelve-year-old murderers. It is the country
where Bill Gates makes obscene amounts of money off of others.
Somehow that is not what I see in my day-to-day life. If you want
to blame someone that conventions made a bad impression, blame the
Snake Lady for using a good system for a bad purpose. I suspect
unless there is a pressing reason to restrict her freedom (well,
they do have a no- weapons policy), we will say she has a right to
dress as she wants, even if it gives people a poor impression of
the convention she is attending. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or
the poet's, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the
colors or the words, must fit together in a
harmonious way. ... There is no permanent place in
the world for ugly mathematics.
-- G. H. Hardy
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